But this foible for parading riches is by no means limited to the expedient of wearing this exquisite fur. Pearls, for instance, have long been a favourite medium, and this the Muscovites seem to have derived from the Romans. Two hundred years ago, “the Russian grandees,” says Lord Macaulay, “came to court dropping pearls and vermin.”
There is, however, no reason to suppose that “dropping pearls”—with or without their concomitants at court—was a mode of parade ever held to be haut ton; for a continuous dropping of “unwinnowed” pearls would have involved a burden as intolerable as the Muscovite chasuble. But if this particular art of display did not bloom into a fashion, it was at least a device full of meaning and “movement.” For was not an abundance of riches not only dropping, but “running over,” suggestive of super abundance—a sign of something de trop?
The spectator gazes in wonder, no doubt, at the many bushels of precious pearls garnered under glass cases at the monastery of Troïtsa; but the spectacle after all is a mere Dutch picture of still-life in comparison with this nacreous shower—this tableau vivant at court, as full of life and flowing riches as the golden drops falling animated at the feet of Danae.
This epigram of Lord Macaulay’s is so amusingly droll that the reader will excuse one more digression. Pascal has said: “Si le nez de Cléopâtre eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé.”
Now, might not the portentous difference in the history of the world, implied in the release of Antony, have been as readily brought about by the Egyptian siren if, instead of dissolving and drinking her precious pearls to detain her lover, she had dropped them at his feet rigoureusement à la russe?
A nose “plus court” might not have changed in either sense “toute la face de la terre,” for,
Mark Antony led astray by the nose so long,
His head, when by another turned,
Would still have gone wrong;
For Egypt’s queen—in spite of a nose too short by far—
Might then, by his own have led him,
“As asses are.”[18]
If women always will lead the World by the nose,
It goes better than pulled by the ears,
They suppose.
But ears less long it needed; not a nose so small,
To have otherwise changed the face
Of the world at all.
“And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose
As asses are——”