The chrysolite is now regarded as a semi-precious stone only, yet Shakespeare presented this gem as the type of excellence in its kind when he wrote (“Othello,” Act V, Scene 2):
Nay, had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I’d not have sold her for it.
It is interesting to note that this appreciation of the beauty of the chrysolite is also shown in an old Greek glossary of alchemical terms, where occur the words: Ιερὸς λίθος ἐστὶ Χρυσόλιθος, “Sacred stone means the chrysolite.”[[664]]
Such was the sacred quality ascribed to strings of coral beads in some parts of Africa, not long since, that they were regarded as the most precious gifts a ruler could bestow. If the favored recipient were so unfortunate as to lose this royal donation—which was a mark of high rank—he himself, as well as all involved in the theft, incurred the penalty of death. A writer of the seventeenth century, Palisot de Beauvais, relates that in Benin human victims were sacrificed at a “coral festival,” when the corals of the king and royal family were dipped in the victim’s blood, so as to placate the coral fetish and ensure a further supply of the precious material.[[665]] Possibly human blood was believed to strengthen the special virtue supposed to be inherent in this red substance.
There is a note of republican simplicity in the reported wearing of coral ornaments on ceremonial occasions by the present Queen of Italy. Indeed, the assertion that this is done to stimulate the coral industry in Italy may be true, as nothing would better tend to do this than such an example of royal favor for coral. Certainly this is in marked contrast with the almost exclusive use of pearl ornaments of all kinds so characteristic of Queen Margarita, whose devotion to the pearl, now perhaps the most costly of gems, had a poetic appropriateness for one bearing her name, and we can scarcely imagine the Pearl of Savoy without her splendid parures and necklaces of pearls. Still, undoubtedly this new departure renders it possible for all Italian women, rich or poor, to loyally follow the example set by their Queen Helena, and there is little danger that the rich will ever neglect to avail themselves of the exclusive privilege they possess of owning and wearing diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, which surpass coral as much in beauty as they do in price.
A comparatively recent attempt to use diamond dust as a poison is said to have been made in 1874 on Colonel Phayre, British Resident at the court of the then reigning Gaikwar of Baroda. The colonel was in the habit of refreshing himself after his morning walk with a glass of sugared water flavored with a little lime-juice. One day, on taking a sip of his customary beverage, he noted that it had a strange taste, and instead of drinking it he saved it up and had it analyzed. The analysis revealed the presence of arsenic in quantity sufficient to cause death, and of diamond dust as well. Here, as in the case of Sir Thomas Overbury, the really innocuous diamond material was accompanied by an actual poison. The current belief in the poisonous quality of the diamond is reflected in the words “mortal as diamond dust,” used by Horace Walpole in one of his letters to the Countess of Ossory.[[666]]
A German writer of the seventeenth century quotes with admiration a wonderful tale told by Johannes Bustamantius to the effect that he had seen a marriage of two diamonds, the two crystals being so firmly drawn toward each other by mutual sympathy that when they were put in one place they would cling to one another, as with an “unending kiss,” as though one were a man and the other a woman, and he asserts that the union was blessed with offspring. This curious idea has been repeatedly put forth by certain of the older writers as we have had occasion to note elsewhere.[[667]]