whole
gem-dealing career, I scarcely knew how to go about the job of finding
a buyer for a collection which, from the many-paged detailed
description, must easily be one of the finest in the world.
There
were in that list recorded the particulars of rough amber in huge
lumps—curiosities, these, because of their unusual size and colour—rare
amber bead strings, amber of ancient, medieval and modern carving,
fauna and flora amber—in short, a most comprehensive collection. I took
considerable pains to discover a potential buyer and even enlisted the
co-operation of a London firm of world-wide repute whose connection
amongst collectors held out hope of something being done. I like to do
things for people I have never met and am never likely to meet—we all
spend so much, time trying to take out of life more than we put into it
that occasionally we must try to redress the balance, or the world
would stop turning!—but I had to disappoint my unknown correspondent by
telling him that no one on this side of the Atlantic was sufficiently
interested in amber to lay out fifty thousand dollars—or was it sixty
thousand?—I forget.
Alabaster,
unlike amber, which is a gem but not a stone, is a stone but not a gem.
For it has none of the qualities or properties which admit it to the
rank of jewel even by courtesy. And yet the ancients thought well of
it, and in its time it has been fashioned into cameos of great artistic
merit. If it did not occur in such great abundance men might have
thought better of it, but what would be the use of weighting your wife
with alabaster ornaments,
