The Golden Bowl

He handled it with tenderness, with ceremony, making a place for it on a small satin mat. My Golden Bowl, he observed–and it sounded on his lips as if it said everything. He left the important object–for as important it did somehow present itself–to produce its certain effect. Simple but singularly elegant, it stood on a circular foot, a short pedestal with a slightly spreading base, and, though not of signal depth, justified its title by the charm of its shape as well as by the tone of its surface. It might have been a large goblet diminished, to the enhancement of its happy curve, by half its original height.