About the Source of the Monetary Value of Precious Stones

That, may we ask," observes a writer in the "Edinburgh Review," "have been the sources of that fascination which precious stones have, from time immemorial, exercised over the minds of men? How comes it that, in this nineteenth century, a little diamond not half the weight of a sixpence will sell for four hundred pounds, and as small a ruby for six hundred or seven hundred? Just as in the days of the Triumvirate, the opal of Nonias, a stone no bigger than a hazel-nut, was valued at twenty thousand pounds of our money, yet its owner went penniless into exile rather than surrender it to the greed of Marc Antony. What can thus gift these little bits of stones with such extraordinary value? What sort of passion is it that would seem so little restrained by conscience or by reason? To say that it is mere cupidity, is not to explain it. The imagination certainly enhances the pleasure derived from the beauty of a diamond, a ruby, a sapphire, or an emerald, for only an eye trained by custom, or instructed by science, can distinguish these stones from their glass counterfeits. It is not, therefore, this beauty alone that gives them their value. Nor is it their adaptation for practical uses that confers on them this quality; for, except in the limited application of diamond-dust, to what useful purposes are these stones applied? Nor is it their mere rarity, else would an ounce of platinum be worth a thousand times more, instead of four times less, than an ounce of gold, and many a substance in nature would be precious far beyond the diamond. It is not, then, the desire merely to possess what others have not. It is rather the passion of doing what others have not. It is rather the passion of doing what others do, and possessing what is the fashion to possess, that gives these tiny stones their price. They are pretty objects, and comparatively rare, and they have the advantage of being almost indestructible, in consequence of their hardness. But what makes them worth many pounds a grain is, that they have acquired by tradition a prestige which fashion perpetuates-a prestige rooted in strange attributes and mystic powers, wherewith the fancies of five thousand years have endowed such stones-a passion that has been ever pandered to by a harpy host of money-making parasites, and has been fostered by that human weakness which, while endeavouring to associate what is pretty with what is costly in the materials chosen for personal ornament, is apt to attach more importance to their price than to their real beauty, in proportion as cupidity is a passion more common than refinement or taste."