I quote Jules Verne from: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
“Sir, what is a pearl?”
“My good Ned”, I answered, “to the poet, the pearl is a tear of the
ocean; to the Orientals, it is a drop of solidified dew; to the
ladies, it is a jewel of oblong form, of a glass-like substance,
which they wear on their fingers, their necks, or their ears …”
Queen Elizabeth I, however, represented the pinnacle of the Age of
the Pearl. She wore pearls in her hair, and on her fingers, and and
on her clothes, and on her wrists, and even on her ears. She was the
Pearl Girl of 16th century Europe.
She ranked in stature as far as pearl wearing was concerned even
above such names as Catherine de Medici and Marie Antoinette who,
each in their own way, kept pearls in the forefront of jewelry
wearing royalty.
Of course, as I know you all know, the pearl represented virginity,
a virtue that did not escape the Virgin Queen … a virtue she was
keen to emphasize … showing one and all as she wore these
dew-drops about a face imbued with lead oxide in order to attain a
whitened pallor about the skin that at best can only be matched by
high quality bond paper … showing one and all that: I don’t do
that sort of thing.
Bravo for the Virgin Queen, I say. Who, I wonder, succeeded her?
And so, today, as I end this pithy Tidbits while imbuing you with
the hopeful belief that quantity is not always quality … I direct
you to a rare drop-shaped silvery pearl–circa 1900–worth a mere
$120,000.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Tidbits Graphics … and then click on the link that says: Pearl …
in order to view a rather expensive representation of virginity.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark