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THE DIAMOND
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emanate from the flashing facets, and the eye watches, as the ear listens when a master hand wanders over the keys of music.
Unseeing
eyes sometimes hold in contempt those for whom these precious things of
beauty have a charra To them, the fascination which these " baubles"
exercise, is no hint that they are wonderful and worthy; they regard
it only as a sign that the fascinated are weak. The sense which caused
that prince of orators and thinkers, Henry Ward Beecher, to carry a
beautiful stone about in his pocket, that he might at will take it out
and feast his eyes upon it, or that leads many men noted in the fields
of government, finance, industry and war even, to buy them at great
prices, not to show upon their persons, but to cherish for themselves
and their familiars in private collections, is beyond them. The
appreciation of precious stones marks the rise of the individual from
grubbing to a broader outlook; of a nation, from the hard struggle for
existence, to the plane of acquirement.
Among
these beautiful creations, the diamond, for several reasons is
pre-eminent. The hardest, it more successfully resists the abrasions of
time, and by the same quality is capable of holding for our delectation
more of the fugitive phenomena of that most blessed source of human
comfort, light. No other has such universal fascination. In all ages
and nations it has been esteemed most highly, and now that all its
dazzling beauty has been discovered, though the ruby may be more
precious to a few lords of the Orient, and elsewhere, and if the pearl
be the jewel of refinement everywhere, the diamond is nevertheless by
far the most gen-
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