Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/100

 from a very early period of manufacture. Some of them indeed develop ideas full of grace and originality, but their productions are always immature and imperfect, and the skill of the workman is called in to make amends for the inadequateness of the manu- facturing process.” Surely it is better to remain stationary than to fall, as we have in England, from the thin beaten silver of Queen Anne’s reign, and the designs of Adams, to the present unseemly dead-weight silver and gold manufactures of Birming- ham and London, for which customers have to pay four times more than the value of their weight. Its false appearance of lichness and solidity, and flaunting gorgeousness, is in fact one of the charms of Indian jewelry, especially in an admiring but poor purchaser’s eyes. You see a necklace, or whatever ornament it may be, made up apparently of solid, rough cut cubes of gold, but it is as light as pith. Yet, though hollow, it is not false. It is of the purest gold, “ soft as wax,” and it is this which gives to the flimsiest and cheapest Indian jewelry its wonderful look of reality. Again, you see a necklace or girdle of gems which you would say was priceless, but it is all mere glamour of pearls and diamonds, emeralds and enamel, which “deceitful shine” but have no intrinsic value. As was noticed under the head of “ Arms,” the Indian jeweller thinks only of producing the sumptuous, imposing effect of a dazzling variety of rich and brilliant colours, and nothing of the purity of his gems. He must have quantity, and cares nothing for commercial quality, and the flawed “ tallow drop” emeralds, and foul spinel rubies, large as walnuts, and mere splinters and scales of diamonds, which he so lavishly uses, are often valueless, except as points, and sparkles, and splashes of effulgent coloring : but nothing can exceed the skill, artistic feeling, and effectiveness with which gems are used in India both in jewelry proper, and in the jewelled de- coration of arms, and plate. In nothing indeed do the people of India display their naturally gorgeous and costly taste so