But here, again, the meanings commonly received are derived from more or less forced comparisons and a tissue of notions more or less flimsy and loose.

However, it is so far established that the sard-stone suggests the Seraphim, the topaz the Cherubim, the jasper means the Thrones, the chrysolite figures the Dominions, the sapphire the Virtues, the onyx the Powers, the beryl the Principalities, the ruby the Archangels, and the emerald the Angels." "And it is a curious fact," said the Abbe Plomb, "that while beasts, colours, and flowers are accepted by that symbolists sometimes with a good meaning and sometimes with an evil one, gems alone never change; they always express good qualities, and never vices." "Why is that ?" "St.Hildegarde perhaps affords a clue to this stability when, in the fourth book, of her treatise on Physics, she says that the Devil hates them, abhors and scorns them, because he remembers that their splendour shone in him before his fall, and that some of them are the product of the fire that is his torment.
"And the saint added, 'God, who deprived him of them, would not that the stones should lose their virtues; He desired, on the contrary, that they should ever be held in honour, and used in medicine to the end that sickness should be cured and ills driven out.' And, in fact, in the Middle Ages they were highly esteemed and used to effect cures." "To return to those early pictures," said the Abbe Gevresin, "in which the Virgin emerges like a flower from amid the gorgeous assemblage of gems, it may be said as a general thing, that the glow of jewels declares by visible signs the merits of Her who wears them; but it would be difficult to say what the painter's purpose may have been when, in the decoration of a crown or a dress, he placed any particular stone in one spot rather than another.

It is, as a rule, a question of taste or harmony, and has nothing, or very little, to do with symbolism." "Of that there can be no doubt," said Durtal, who rose and took leave, as Madame Bavoil, hearing the cathedral clock strike, handed to the two priests their hats and breviaries..