“It is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St John. They look like fragments of heaven. I think the emerald is more beautiful than any of them.” EmeraldsMiddlemarchRomance Of Stones Book:Middlemarch Source: Middlemarch
“Whenever you touch topaz, it touches you. It awakens a gentle fire, like wine awakens in grapes. Still unborn, clear wine seeks channels amidst stone, demands words, bestows its secret nourishment, shares out the kiss of human skin. The touch of stone and man in serene peace kindles garlands of fleeting flowers, which then return to prime sources: flesh and stone: contrary elements. (Translation, Beatriz von Eidlitz)” TopazRomance Of Stones Author:Pablo Neruda
“The aesthetes of Des Esseintes' generation found diamonds common, rubies and emeralds depreciated, and turquoises vulgar. The old poetry was dead, though echoes of it lived on in the names of such gems as chrysoberyl and peridot and olivines and almandines and cymophanes and aquamarines. Beauty which has departed from things may live on in words.” Romance Of Stones Book:A History of Jewellery 1100-1870 Source: A History of Jewellery 1100-1870