One whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.
As far back as the Bible a thing of supreme quality was referred to as a pearl of great price; and the same book (Matthew) issues the famous warning: “Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”
In other ways the pearl has been used as a symbol. The poet Swinburne, in sentimental mood, exclaimed:
The world has no such flowers in any land,
And no such pearl in any gulf the sea,
As any babe on any mother’s knee.
The rarity of the stone, and the difficult task of the pearl-diver, are used symbolically in an epigram by Dryden:
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;