Critical Comments
The duchess and the jewelers is a fine little short story the whole life of the jeweller is very well portrayed in a few lines. The writer has told us that he had risen through sharp practice, and had become the richest jeweller in England. But he was not satisfied. He wanted to win greater glory and more money, and worked with that object in view.
Imagine a giant hog in a pasture rich with truffles after unearthing this truffle and that , still it smells a bigger , a blacker truffle under the ground farther off. So Oliver snuffed always in the rich earth of Mayfair another truffle, a blacker , a bigger farther off.
He never thought that any one could have deceive him. Then came the old Duchess who was a cunning and sharp as he was , and by giving him the bait of the company of her daughter deceived him into paying her twenty thousand pounds . He had lost for once , and it was a big loss from all angles .
In this story the writer has studied the psychology of the jeweller. He is clever , and very intelligent. No one can deceive him but he has a weak point. He has failed in love. The Mademoiselle who used to give him flowers had married someone else , and he was still a bachelor of mature years. He loved the daughter of Duchess , but had no opportunities of making love to her. The duchess knew that and gave him the right bait at the right time. In the hope of being near his beloved, he forgot the golden principles of his trade and was taken in. In his circumstances no one, no man , with a heart in his breast , could have withstood the temptation. That is the point of the story. There are losses which one must bear, because after all man is a man, and sometimes his passions rather than his reason govern him.
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