In that sense it is a mild word, and promises but little to the eye-nothing bright, nothing brilliant, nothing sparkling, nothing splendid in the way of color.

It accurately describes the sober and unobtrusive gem-work of the Taj; that is, to the very highly-educated one person in a thousand; but it most falsely describes it to the 999.

But the 999 are the people who ought to be especially taken care of, and to them it does not mean quiet-colored designs wrought in carnelians, or agates, or such things; they know the word in its wide and ordinary sense only, and so to them it means diamonds and rubies and opals and their kindred, and the moment their eyes fall upon it in print they see a vision of glorious colors clothed in fire.
These describers are writing for the "general," and so, in order to make sure of being understood, they ought to use words in their ordinary sense, or else explain.

The word fountain means one thing in Syria, where there is but a handful of people; it means quite another thing in North America, where there are 75,000,000.

If I were describing some Syrian scenery, and should exclaim, "Within the narrow space of a quarter of a mile square I saw, in the glory of the flooding moonlight, two hundred noble fountains--imagine the spectacle!" the North American would have a vision of clustering columns of water soaring aloft, bending over in graceful arches, bursting in beaded spray and raining white fire in the moonlight-and he would be deceived.