Its properties of translucence and refraction enabled
skilful artists to perform marvels. By suitable management a chain of
artemisium could be made to resemble a string of vari-colored gems,
each separate link having a tint of its own, while, as the wearer
moved, delicate complementary colors chased one another, in rapid
undulation, from end to end.
A fresh charm was added by the new metal to the personal adornment of
women, and an enhanced splendor to the pageants of society. Gold in
its palmiest days had never enjoyed such a vogue. A crowded reception
room or a dinner party where artemisium abounded possessed an
indescribable atmosphere of luxury and richness, refined in quality,
yet captivating to every sense. Imaginative persons went so far as to
aver that the sight and presence of the metal exercised a strangely
soothing and dreamy power over the mind, like the influence of
moonlight streaming through the tree-tops on a still, balmy night.
The public curiosity in regard to the origin of artemisium was
boundless. The various nations published official bulletins in which
the general facts--omitting, of course, such incidents as the singular
exhibition seen by the visiting financiers on the wall of Dr.
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