The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-30

! the grace Of Milton speaks with rapture
! about Jewels on an Ethiop's ear or
! when Tennyson sings how he would like
to be the diamond that sparkles near a
| certain cheek. On the other side, we
nave lyric writer prettily complaining:
~ - The, tip no jewel needs to wear,
The tip is jewel to the ear
and Robert Browning broke into some
thing like poetic Indignation at one Of
his heroines, writing:
How could you ever pierce that per-
feet ear,
Even to put a pearl there2'
LAS far, therefore, as gees the judg-
ment of Parnassus it is just as broad as
it is long and for every statement made
against earrings another might be cited
on their behalf.
Even the physiological argument that
ears were orig .nally created with holes
in them can be circumvented by the little
trick of wearing an invisible loop around
the organ.
mo maxim, however, Is more cheer
FULLY accepted than that one must suf-
fer to be beautiful and the tiny pune
ture requisite Is easily endured and
rapidly healed
Meantime, If some In all ages have
called these ornaments barbaric, and if
a few still consider them so they are
certainly Immensely ancient, universally
popular and individually classical.
1T may not be generally known that
the marble ears of the matchless Venus
dc Medici were specially perforated for
the gold and ivory ear-pendants which
the goddess was intended to wear
Earrings must have been cf familiar
use IN the times Of the Hebrew patri-
archs, since we read that Jacob bu.ie d
those articles of his family wardrobe
along with his Strange idols at Bethel
"A passage also indicating that they
We're regarded as amulets or talismans
and had mystic signiiicances.
AS for their antiquity, the earliest
find of jcwelry which archaeologists
make always include the now reVIvinR
adornment.
DIT schliemann dug up at Troy and
again at Mycenae, exquisite objects OF
the kind wrought in pure leaf-goId and
delicate wirework, and S1gnor Cas- ell
lani recovered from the Etrurian sepul-
chres similar examples of the most de-
icious and refined goldsmithery, which
had graced the cars of the ladies Of
Lars Posena and the Tarquins.
Modern craftsmen humbly Initiate
without pretending to surpass those mar
velous creations of flagreed gold, twisted
and chased as If by fairy fingers. and
wonderfully crusted with microscopic
nodules which give the pure, soft, pre-
cious metal the texture and the glow of q
flower petal.
Egyptian mummy-tombs have yielded
vast numbers of admirably wrought ear
rings, as also the Anglo-Saxon tumuli
and the burial places of Scandinavia and
the Phoenician colonies. .
ITO judge from these, earrings must
have seemed to the feminine half of the
antique world an Indispensable item of
daily dress, as they are to this day in
india, where almost every native woman
carries a pearl set in gold in one or both
ears, and, if married, pierces the left
nostril to suspend from it golden ring
set with jewel
"AH over savage Africa both sexes dis
play ear ornaments, and like manv of
the Indian people, the negroes enlarge
the orifice in the lobe and use 1t as a
convenient receptacle for pipe-stems,
snuff-spoons and the like.
In the islands of the South Pacific the
Polynesian races insert large circular
Whorls Of shell, or brass, or wood in the
enlarged siot produced in the lobe, which
are by certain tribes drawn down till
they touch the shoulders
This Is indeed barbaric, but who shall
care to call by that name the Orient
pearl which glimmers against the rose
lear OF lady'S cheek, or the diamond
that sparkles like a crystallized dewdrop
through her hair.
so long as she does not stoop to nose
rings or carry her purse and cardcase
in the lobes Of her shell-shaped ears
beauty will continue to do Just as she
pleases and the world to admire and an
plaud her"