And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie. Naturally, this wisdom of the serpent with which his innocence was garnished brought favorable response: And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls, Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls. After she had bought of his trinkets, the old teacher carefully introduces the covered object of his visit. Oh, lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings, Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of Kings, A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay. This statement at once arouses a keen interest, for in those days great gems came from unexpected sources and by unlikely hands and coming seldom, excited desire to an extent unknown in these abundant times. Glancing at the mirrored pearls in her own hair the lady says: Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old— And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold. Here is the golden opportunity of the zealot. From its place of concealment beneath the tempting wares in his pack he takes a shabby little book and gives it to her saying: Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it proove as such to thee, Nay—keep thy gold—I ask it not; for the Word of God is free! Nor does the religious mind of Whittier fail to remember the gates of pearl, for in "Ego" he speaks of The pearl gates of the Better Land. Carlyle makes reference to the gem in a line greater in conception and more poetic than most of those which occur in the rhymes of the poets—"She died in beauty, like a pearl dropped from some diadem." In Ruffini's "Dr. Antonio," man and woman are set in marriage as a foil and complement of each other though the metaphor shows some misunderstanding of the qualities of gems, for black diamonds are not as fiery as others. The lines are: The fiery black diamond casting lustre over the Oriental pearl: the Oriental pearl in return lending softness to the black diamond. Dryden does not forget pearls when he caparisons the royal mighty and in "Palamon and Arcite" fitly thus describes Emetrius, King of Inde: His surcoat o'er his arms was cloth of Thrace, Adorned with pearls all orient, round and great. It is remarkable that so many poets have seen in the pearl a simile for raindrops and dew. Among them, Browning in the song from "Pippa Passes," sees— The hill-side's dew-pearled. At its best, the pearl is not luminous, neither does it flash nor sparkle: the quality of it is softly lustrous as of light that smolders; but transferring by imagery the mist-white texture of dew when it is spread over leaf and grass blade, to the transparent dew-drop, poets see in the sparkling globule, which in the sun is of diamantine brilliancy, a simile of the pearl.