Sunstone

“ This precious stone, as durable as the sun, and far more accessible than that, shines with the same fire, unites all its rays and colours in a single facet, and lavishes its charms, by night and day, in every clime, at all seasons; whilst the sun appears only when it so pleases; sometimes shining, sometimes misty, and shows itself off with innumerable pretensions. ”

“ For instance, you expect a palm-tree to tell dark against the sunset. Oh, dear me no, not necessarily here. I saw one a tender green, and the sand about it was in a haze of softest rose-colour, through which shone the vivid orange light of the sunset behind it. Incredible altogether are the colours at sunset, but all so fleeting. And there is no after-glow here as in Egypt and Italy; the instant the glory of the setting sun is gone all is over and all is grey.
“Even the melancholy-quaint sound of the frogs through the night suggests fairy tales. It is appealing in its own way. ”

“ This hypnotic effect is probably caused by some gleam or point of light in the stone, attracting and fixing the beholder’s gaze. The moonstone, the star sapphire, and the cat’s-eye are all gems which possess a moving light, a moving line, or three crossed lines, and they are believed by the Orientals to be gems of good luck. Indeed, it is supposed in the East that a living spirit dwells within these stones, a spirit potent for good. ”

“ The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon, it first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this day—the name of The Moonstone. ”

“ Early in the morning, before a single sunbeam has illumined the dark deep twilight of the sky, they rise in solemn majesty, the icy outline being distinctly defined, while they stand out from the grey atmosphere around—anon a tint of amber spreads over them, and, divested of their chilling grandeur, they come out warm and glowing: again they shew like cold bright silver in the sun, while in the evening they are all crimson with the rose that flushes through the sky: a single mile, nay, even a single turn of the road, sufficing to invest them with new shapes and new peculiarities. ”

“ Thus sunset was described as the sun growing old, decaying, dying; the sunrise as night giving birth to a brilliant, beautiful child. Spring was Sol greeting the happy earth with a warm embrace, and showering his treasures into the lap of nature. Rivers, fountains, grottoes, forests, mountains, rain, storm, the ocean, fire, thunder clouds and the heavenly bodies were all clothed with the attributes of living beings, and all descriptions of them were myths. ”

“ The sombre hue of its high embosoming rocks, the bare surface of the stone-covered plain, with the absence of all vegetation, formed a scene well suited for a deed of blood, especially if it can be pictured upon a night when the moon, sometimes obscured by clouds, cast occasional shadows of a pitchy darkness upon the earth. ”

“ Forthwith the dead stones become alive with greenness, the glass walls assume the semblance of a meadow, the milky hue of the water disappears as the earthy particles it held in solution subside, and the light that streams through it takes a tint of greenness. ”

“ The intense limpidity and crystalline clearness of the atmosphere, the brilliance of the limestone, the no less dazzling hue of the foliage everywhere adorning it, the beautiful lights and shadows of the more distant masses, line upon line of far off mountain-chain, mere gold and violet clouds rising above the rugged outline of the Causses, the deep, rich tones of the nearer—these general effects are not more striking than the details close under our feet. ”

“ It thus streams forth for all like the splendour of the sun, and yet those who receive it are not all equally enlightened. The sun shines more clearly through glass than through stone, more clearly through crystal than through glass, and each precious stone shines and shows its beauty and its [111] power and its colour in the light of the sun. ”

“ And neither in England nor on the Continent do we get the great distances of desert sunsets. And great distances increase immeasurably that feeling of infinity which is the chief glory in a sunset.
The clearness of the atmosphere is important in this respect also, that it produces the effect upon the colours of the sunset that they seem more like the colours we see in precious stones than the colours a painter throws on a canvas. There is no milkiness or murkiness in them. The sky is so clear that we see a colour as we see the red in a ruby. We see deep into the colour. ”

“ Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn-blossoms like drifted snow, and summer duns in the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold, far above among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, starlike on the stone, and the gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years."—Foot-Notes from the Page of Nature. ”

“ Dawn—soft green and pallid gold, luminous, then dying under a heavy cloud while faint pink brightened on the sides of the great horizon—opened the lofty plain, boundless and naked, thinly touched with tufts of vegetation; as far as one could see, only the elements—color, cold, swathing wild herbage on rugged soil ”

“ About the time of the sun's reappearance, and for a week or two after it, these clouds were not more a subject of admiration to us on account of their novelty, than from the glowing richness of the tints with which they were adorned. It is, indeed, scarcely possible for nature, in any climate, to produce a sky exhibiting greater splendour and richness of colouring than we at times experienced in the course of this spring. ”

“ The red of the sunlight grows dull against the blue sky, until night gradually wraps the scene in her mantle of grey. Then the moon comes out with her silvery light, and reveals new features of wondrous wildness and beauty. ”

“ The ascent is toilsome, especially if it be made at noon on an airless summer day with the sun blazing pitilessly from a cloudless sky, the rocks so hot that you cannot touch them without pain, the loose stones slipping at every step, the dry withered shrubs and herbage crackling under foot and blinding you with clouds of dust and down. ”

“ The sunset was the same miracle of beauty that it usually is near the Equator, but below and beyond them there hovered a gray-green void that slowly spread like some disfiguring disease over the fair face of the sky. ”

“ Greens and blues, purples and whites, melt into one another, fade, and come again, and change with the changing sun. Sometimes they are as richly diaphanous as a precious stone, and glow from within with a deep, inexplicable light. Sometimes the white intricacies of dropping foam become opaque and creamy. And always there are the rainbows. If you come suddenly upon the Falls from above, a great double rainbow, very vivid, spanning the extent of spray from top to bottom, is the first thing you see. ”

“ The sky, a vast hemisphere of cloud and blue and sunshine, with a complex and ever elusive geography of its own, discovered all the tints of heath and granite. It was one of those days when every tint was divided into ten thousand shades, and each is richer and more softly beautiful than the others. ”

“ Trees and shrubs stand out clearly, and their shadows stand out blackly under the rays of the serene silver moon that swings high in the sky. Everything is transformed by the kindly rays into things of beauty, and sometimes I stand and gaze away across the paddocks bathed in the silver light and marvel at the stillness. ”

“ Except in late autumn and early spring, you are living under almost cloudless skies, in an atmosphere steeped in sunshine, spicy with the healing resin of the pines and hemlocks and spruce, that not only scent the air but literally permeate it with the essences of their own life. You are living far above the vapors of sea level, in a region luminous of light. ”

“ Fed thus on the food of the Immortals, the heart opened to the width and depth of the summer—to the broad horizon afar, down to the minutest creature in the grass, up to the highest swallow. Winter shows us Matter in its dead form, like the Primary rocks, like granite and basalt—clear but cold and frozen crystal. Summer shows us Matter changing into life, sap rising from the earth through a million tubes, the alchemic power of light entering the solid oak ”

“ The sun is like the star spangled banner—as it is "still there." You get up to-morrow morning just before sunrise and look away toward the east, and keep on looking in that direction, and at last you will, see a fine sight, if what I have been told is true. If the sunrise is as grand as the sunset, it indeed must be one of nature's most sublime phenomena. ”

“ In such an hour the limpid water of the spring seems to rise out of the very heart of the earth, and to bring with it an unfailing refreshment of spirit. The white sand through which it finds its way makes its transparent clearness more apparent, and the great stone seems to hold back the woods from an approach that would overshadow it. ”

“ Sunrise is accompanied by the highest degree of splendour in these alpine regions, lighting up the mountain-brows with gold, and flinging over the snowy range those gorgeous hues which the hand of nature alone can create. ”

“ Nothing could be more charming than the flushing of the mountains at sunrise and sunset, and the magnificence of the windy, wintry noon. The rocky spires, pinnacles, and domes, glowing with gorgeous golden light, and the lower ranges, shaded with hazy blue, umber-red, and luminous purple, fell into picture and formed prospects indescribably pure and pellucid. ”

“ From the grandeur of the setting sun pale shadows are cast of posts and cows and houses and railings and heaps of stones. Unexpectedly they faint away as something steals upon the splendour of the radiant disc and stops the brightness of the rays. Myriads of wisps of cloud, like tiny hands, assist at the eclipse, laying the sun to rest in a dreadful bloody bath, agonising and bleeding and growing less and going down, with evil triumphing over good. ”

“ The fresh, crisp air of early morning; the peace which sinks like a benediction upon the wearied earth when the scorching sun has fallen from the sky, and the sand gives off its heat in rapid radiation; the sense of immensity made manifest in the wide, wide plains by day, and in the almost supernaturally bright skies at night ”

“ The fleecy clouds that hang on the eastern horizon grow ruddy with gold; and the arrowy light shoots its bright rays athwart the clear blue sky. The dust and foulness which the night has hidden stand revealed. ”

“ Neither Arab nor European alchemist, nor Buddhist recluse, dreamed that the stone that gave light, that nourished, that rejoiced, that enriched, was the sun shining above their heads. The conception of the sun as a stone was so old, so rolled and rubbed down, that they had no notion whence it came. ”

“ But the sun is not only a golden ball, but it is also a shining stone; and here at the outset we tell our secret: the sun is the true Philosopher's Stone, that turns all to gold, that gives health, that fills with joy.
In primeval times, our rude forefathers were puzzled how to explain the nature of sun and moon and stars, and they thought they had hit on the interpretation of the phenomenon when they said that the stars were diamonds stuck in the heavenly vault, and that the sun was a luminous stone, a carbuncle ”

“ The rising sun will scatter over the chambers of the dead his gladsome rays, and tint the western sky with the glories of departing day. In the hush of night the feeble rays of countless stars, traveling centuries on their journey here, will finally rest upon her grave. ”

“ The Creator has spoken, and the stars [Pg 209] look out from openings of deep unclouded blue; and as day rises, and the planet of morning pales in the east, the broken cloudlets are transmuted from bronze into gold, and anon the gold becomes fire, and at length the glorious sun arises out of the sea, and enters on his course rejoicing. It is a brilliant day; the waves, of a deeper and softer blue than before, dance and sparkle in the light; the earth, with little else to attract the gaze, has assumed a garb of brighter green ”

“ The moon shone brightly over the pure white landscape, and, as far as the eye could range, nought was to be seen but leafless trees, which bowed and shook in a stiff north-west breeze, and their melancholy flutterings seemed to be like gentle moans and sighings at the white death-like pall which covered nature far and wide. ”

“ THE STONE Have you seen an old, old stone on the seashore, when the brisk waves are beating upon it from all sides, at high tide, on a sunny spring day—beating and sparkling and caressing it, and drenching its mossy head with crumbling pearls of glittering foam? ”

“ A young moon shone like a white curved flame in the purple dome, casting its pure reflection on the misty beauty of the garden that, like a picture painted without colour, lay motionless under the starry heavens,—patches of black shadow, and splashes of white where the pale flowers showed in clusters in the uncertain light. ”

“ The sun-dial forms a perfect ornament at the intersection of the garden paths. Every one responds to the quaint beauty and mystery of the sun-dial with its dark shadow that creeps quietly across the dial and tells the hours so softly. As Charles Lamb says: "It is the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by and birds to apportion their silver warblings by." Nothing has a more antique air than the sun-dial. ”