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or
series of pearls, seemingly all white, contains a surprisingly great
variety of shades or tones of color; that which appears at first sight
quite easy becomes in the attempt extremely difficult. Probably
nothing requires a sharper eye, a more delicate sense of color and
greater patience, than the assembling of a finely matched string of
pearls. Bearing in mind that size, shape, color, and perfection, must
all correspond, it is not surprising that few strings exist which are
above criticism.
Those
who buy them seldom realize what enormous quantities of pearls, and
skilful and painstaking effort is necessary, to match perfectly,
thirty or more, especially of large size. Pearls which, separated by a
few inches seem alike, when brought close together reveal differences
of texture and tone of color sufficiently pronounced to arrest the eye
and destroy that ideal perfection of purity which permits no spot to
mar the symmetry of an assemblage of these emblematic gems. It was said
in old times that to match a pearl perfectly was to double the value of
both; one may imagine therefore the difficulty which confronts
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