One
day when the latter queen was stepping into the state coach which was
to take her to the opening of Parliament this rope of pearls broke on
the woodwork of the coach. Some of the pearls were scattered and rolled
everywhere. Whether they were all counted over on the spot as they were
found is not recorded; presumably, in spite of the urgent need of
royalty to be punctual, and particularly on such an occasion, they
were, for not a pearl (it is said) was missing when the state coach
moved on.
This
is not a book of elegant literary quotations, but I read a great deal
and whenever I see anything on the subject of pearls it sticks. As
often as not the author is misinformed—after all, no expert thinks much
of a layman's knowledge!—though I think few who ought to know better
knew as little as Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith, who in
an amusing anecdote referred to pearls as "fishes' bones".
They
have, of course, nothing to do with fishes, but are the product of
successive coats of nacre on some irritating object inside an oyster's
shell. The core of a pearl may be a grain of sand, a tiny shell or a
minute marine animal which has penetrated inside the oyster. If many
coats are deposited evenly over a long space of time, the result may be
a perfectly round fine pearl. Usually it is nothing of the sort, and
round pearls are the rarest of all. There are also oval, drop-shaped,
button-shaped and common baroque (irregular) pearls. Their colour and
lustre tell the expert exactly what part of the world they come from.
The true Oriental pearl comes from the Persian Gulf,
