looks
forth once more over the walls of the sacred city in which its story
first began. How it has found its way back to its wild native land, by
what accident, or by what crime, may be," concludes the author, " in
your knowledge but is not in mine. You have lost sight of it in
England, and (if I know anything of this strange, mystic people) you
have lost sight of it for ever."—With queer, little, shrewd Miss
Mowcher (in David Copperfield) the modern reader of this
strange, eventful history may well feel inclined to exclaim, " Oh, my
stars, and what's-their-names ! " meaning—mock-modestly— " garters."
Felspar
is " spar of the fields" (German). It is much used in making the noted
Sevres porcelain. The Moonstone, Adularia, is the purest kind of
felspar that is known.
THE TOADSTONE.
Shakespeare has
told the world, in eloquent speech, that " the toad, ugly, and
venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." And long prior to
his time some such a notion must have possessed the minds of our
ancestors, who had firm belief in the many virtues of the " Toadstone." If
swallowed it was a certain antidote to poison. Erasmus has described
this stone as a " gem " to which no name had been given by the Greeks,
or the Romans ; but the French have named it after the toad. The figure
of a toad shines through as if enclosed in the stone itself. Some
authorities of repute, add, moreover, that if the stone be put into
vinegar, " the toad will swim therein, and move its legs;" which
account induces a belief that the said wonderful stone was in all
probability a lump of amber,
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