She
buys her copper and silver and the little gold she uses in bulk; her
jewels--semi-precious stones for the most part--come from all over the
world. In her cool, airy workroom with the green trees of the big
Square outside, this little woman heats and bends and bores her metals
and shines her stones in their quaint settings, with a rapt absorption
that is balanced by her steady skill. It is no light or easy work,
this making of hand-made jewelry, and it requires no inconsiderable
gift of delicate fancy and artistic judgment. This girl is an artist,
not the less so because she makes her flowers and dragons and symbolic
figures out of metal instead of canvas and paint; not the less so
because her colours do not come in tubes but imprisoned in the rare,
exotic tints of shimmering gems.
Here is a ring of slightly dulled silver--the design is of a water
lily, fragile and delicate. In the heart of it lies, like a dewdrop, a
pale-green jewel called peridot. Here is the soft, rich blue of _lapis
lazuli_--here the keener azure of turquoise matrix.
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