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Sapphire   /sˈæfaɪər/   Listen
Sapphire

noun
1.
A precious transparent stone of rich blue corundum valued as a gemstone.
2.
A transparent piece of sapphire that has been cut and polished and is valued as a precious gem.
3.
A light shade of blue.  Synonyms: azure, cerulean, lazuline, sky-blue.



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"Sapphire" Quotes from Famous Books



... upward climbing lanes, no breeze yet tempered the still air; the sky of misted sapphire showed not a cloud from verge to verge. Tarrant, as if to make up for his companion's silence, talked ceaselessly, and always in light vein. Sunshine, he said, was indispensable to his life; he never passed the winter in London; if he were the poorest of ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... appear at any turn of the road—it was like reading a story that came to life as you read it! And then in the last chapter of it to arrive at the loveliest lady in the world, the same whose form and face mingled with his every day-dream—it was a chain of gold with a sapphire at the end of it—a flowery path to the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... sweet, when billows heave their head, And shake their arrowy crests on high, Serene, in Ocean's sapphire bed, Beneath ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be; On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,— They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton

... our niche under the stony canopy, to see that the sky was one blaze of orange, and gold, and fiery red, which in turn seemed to stain the sea, as if it was all liquid topaz, and sapphire, and amethyst, like the old jewels that had belonged to my mother, and which I had sometimes seen in my father's desk. Nothing, I suppose, could have been more lovely, nothing more grand. If we looked to the left, the rocky cliff was all glow hero, all dark purple shadow there, and ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... child burst in, trilling with laughter. 'First, are two flawed sapphires—one of two ruttees and one of four as I should judge. The four-ruttee sapphire is chipped at the edge. There is one Turkestan turquoise, plain with black veins, and there are two inscribed—one with a Name of God in gilt, and the other being cracked across, for it came out of an old ring, I cannot read. We have now all five blue stones. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... days through sapphire seas we sailed, The steady Trade blew strong and free, The Northern Light his banners paled, The Ocean Stream our channels wet, We rounded low Canaveral's lee, And passed the isles of emerald set ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... for me this morning. She's the dearest dear in the world! I don't wonder you're so crazy about her. How red your hand is next to mine! Madge Cunningham says that I have the whitest and prettiest hands of any girl in school—and she's made a special study of hands. Isn't that the cunningest sapphire ring? Sister Polly sent it to me on my last birthday; so now you know what month I was born in. Jeannette Crawley says it's just the color of my eyes. She writes poetry. She wrote some awfully sweet verses about my hair. 'The ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... she realised a new and terrible aspect of it. That which has the power to bestow has another power. She had seen the great procession of those who had received gifts of the desert's hands. Would she some day, or in the night when the sky was like a sapphire, see the procession of those from whom the desert had taken away perhaps their dreams, perhaps their hopes, perhaps even all that they passionately loved ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... her own gate, the evening before that glorious day, and sang his way down the street, feeling that he floated on the airy uplift of his own barcarole beneath sapphire skies, for Bertha had put her arms ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... scared hush that followed the Count perceived that he had stumbled headlong into a mystery. He saw Lady O'Moy's face turn whiter and whiter, saw her sapphire eyes dilating as they ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... on the south-east, so that he had a view, not only of the vast naked downs billowing away towards Newhaven, but also of the Channel, which was calm, and upon which little parcels of fog rested. The sky was clear overhead, of a greenish sapphire colour, and the autumnal air bit and gnawed on the skin like some friendly domestic animal, and invigorated like an expensive tonic. On the dying foliage of a tree near the window millions of precious stones hung. Cocks were boasting. Cows ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... unnumbered laughter of the sea-waves; when Virgil in a single line paints for us the silvery Galaesus flowing now under dark boughs, and now through golden fields; when Dante bids us gaze on a sky which is of the sweet color of the Eastern sapphire; when Wordsworth points us to the daffodils tossing in the winds of March beside the dancing waves of the lake; when Tennyson shows us "the gummy chestnut buds that glisten in the April blue;" when even in prose Mr. Ruskin produces scenes and sunsets as gorgeous as those of his own Turner—what ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... medium, and the effect is magical; the superb rose and lancet windows, not dazzling, rather captivating the vision with the hues of the rainbow, being made up, as it seems, with no commoner materials than sapphire, emerald, ruby, topaz, amethyst, all these in the richest imaginable profusion. Other interiors are more magnificent in architectural display, none are lovelier than this, and there is nothing to mar the general harmony, no gilding or artificial flowers, no ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... drift-wood; the native huts on the sandy floor of the palm groves; the scattered sandalwood and ebony; the screaming parakeets in the plantains; the fishing proas; the mission with its white washed walls and barren frontage; the lagoon, fringed with coco palms, now ruffled emerald, now placid sapphire. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... took a sapphire pen And wrote in rainbow dew, "The man would be a boy again, And be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the blue cloudy masses of Barker's men blocking the entrance to the high-road like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied troops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as follows: The Yellow army (if I may so describe the West Kensingtonians) lies, as I have said, in a strip along the ridge, its furthest point westward being the west side of Campden ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... automatically holds the divided screw-head in any place. With very little practice the click of the spring in the notches becomes a sufficient guide for adjustment, without reference to the figures on the screw-head. Another meritorious feature of this pen is that it is armed with sapphire points, which retain their sharpness very long, and thus save the time and labor required to keep ordinary instruments in order for ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... and lapis-lazuli—that belongs alone to the basements of Italian mountains; higher, the roseate whiteness of ridged snow on Alps or Apennines; highest, the blue of the sky, ascending from pale turquoise to transparent sapphire filled with light. A mediaeval mystic might have likened this chord to the spiritual world. For the lowest region is that of natural life, of plant and bird and beast, and unregenerate man. It is the place of faun and nymph ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... of the sky seemed to soothe her, and speak of hope. Could any other country produce a sky of so deep a sapphire as the night sky of Egypt? All around was intense sensuous warmth and stillness almost ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... is a white metal called aluminium. United to oxygen it becomes alumina, the chief substance in clay. Rocks of this kind—such as clays, and also the lovely blue gem, sapphire—are called Argillaceous Rocks, from the Latin word for clay, and belong to the second class. ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... (afterwards Sir David) Brewster, the renowned Scotch physicist, suggested that certain advantages might accrue from the use of such gems as have high refractive and low dispersive indices, in place of lenses made of glass. Accordingly lenses were made of diamond, of sapphire, and so on, and with some measure of success. But in 1812 a much more important innovation was introduced by Dr. William Hyde Wollaston, one of the greatest and most versatile, and, since the death of Cavendish, by far the most eccentric of English natural philosophers. This ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles; And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... deer from many a crystal pond, And the starred peacock gemmed the shade beyond. Around that child all nature shone more bright; Her innocence was as an added light. Rubies and diamonds strewed the grass she trode, And jets of sapphire from the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... chains of twisted gold, seven lamps, each wrought from a single yellow sapphire, gave soft light. The floor was a mosaic of gold ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North

... this request was based on a mistake.—Philip wanted a visible theophany, like that which Moses beheld, when the majestic procession swept down the mountain pass; or as the elders saw, when they beheld the paved sapphire work; or after the fashion of the visions vouchsafed to Elijah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel. He wanted to see the Father. But how can you make wisdom, or love, or purity visible, save ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... white-moustached General Mohun beheld, emerging on the platform, a slight figure in a grey suit, bag in hand, accompanied by a pretty pink-cheeked, fair-haired, knicker- bockered little boy, whose air of content and elation at being father's companion made his sapphire eyes goodly ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pass in the street Glad of the shining sapphire weather, But we know more of it than they, Pain ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale

... hour one must draw near, and scrutinise them afresh, and ask oneself what remains. As I write, I open the door of my treasury and look round. What comes up before me? I see an opalescent sky, and the great soft blue rollers of a sapphire sea. I am journeying, it seems, in no mortal boat, though it was a commonplace vessel enough at the time, twenty years ago, and singularly destitute of bodily provision. What is that over the sea's rim, where the tremulous, shifting, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... on the specified refreshment, biscuits and coffee, and enthroned Mrs Tallboys in the large arm-chair, where she looked most beautiful and gorgeous, in a robe of some astonishing sheeny sky-blue, edged with paly gold, while on her head was a coronal of sapphire and gold, with a marvellous little plume. The cost must have been enormous, and her delicate and spirituelle beauty was shown to the greatest advantage; but as the audience was far too scanty to be worth beginning upon, Cecil, with a sigh at the folly ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and stockings," shouted the twins; "us both always do." And Susie, without a thought, unlaced her boots, and flung them hither and thither, never stopping to look behind her or to be sure that they were safe. The water was quite warm and the sea was sapphire blue. It was a very low tide, and the rocks stretched away to a long, low island, crowned with grass, where a few nimble goats perched on unlikely crags. From rock to rock flew Susie's active feet, but Dot was always ahead; and so, slipping, splashing, torn by the rocks, drenched with ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow

... the heart that loves her a pure picture, a sacred remembrance, unspotted by the base passions engendered by the years! Go, we shall remember you! In the clear air of our native land, under its azure sky, above the billows of the lake set amid sapphire hills and emerald shores, in the crystal streams shaded by the bamboos, bordered by flowers, enlivened by the beetles and butterflies with their uncertain and wavering flight as though playing with the air, in the silence of our forests, in the singing ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... its wings! See how she smooths down its ruffled plumage, and, hark ye, listen to its plaintive cooing! My angel, my sweet one, come near me, let me whisper in thine ear. Go, bring me that bunch of luscious grapes which is suspended on that sapphire cloud, and make me wine of them that gods might envy! Ah, see, she goes,—she wings her flight,—she grasps the rich fruit,—she comes! She presses the grapes, and here is wine,—from where? From paradise! Droop not, droop not, droop not, spirit of light! Do not weep! What ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... sea, which the colonel—who was well acquainted with the south-west of Ireland—at once identified as Dingle Bay. Westward of them stretched the broad Atlantic, its foam-flecked waters tinted a lovely sea-green immediately below them, which gradually changed to a delicate sapphire blue as it stretched away toward the invisible horizon (the atmosphere not proving sufficiently clear to allow of their seeing to the utmost possible limits of distance), the colour growing gradually fainter and more faint until it became lost in a soft silvery ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Park and of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and of Alaska. Yellowstone Park is perhaps the only region where one can see innumerable geysers shooting high into the air, performing year after year with clockwork regularity. Its opal and sapphire pools and hot sulphurous springs, its bears and wild creatures, remind one that here Nature left a specimen of her earliest creation. Motoring along the roads of Wyoming to the "Devil's Paint Pot" of hot bubbling mud, with gurgling springs, vaporous fountains, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... words I told her that my seeming negligence was nothing but my bitter loss and wretched absence far away; of which I had so vainly striven to give any tidings without danger to her. When she heard all this, and saw what I had brought from London (which was nothing less than a ring of pearls with a sapphire in the midst of them, as pretty as could well be found), she let the gentle tears flow fast, and came and sat so close beside me, that I trembled like a folded sheep at the bleating of her lamb. But recovering comfort quickly, without more ado, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... made a feeble effort to struggle to his feet. But the attempt was a failure, the last particle of strength had already been spent, and, sighing heavily, Butler subsided back upon the supporting arm of the Indian, and lay staring vacantly at the rich sapphire sky that arched above him. Then Harry took him by the hand, and, calling him by name, endeavoured to win some sign of recognition from him, but all in vain. The utmost that he could accomplish was to extract from his patient a few meaningless, incoherent mumblings, which conveyed ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... shocked at her pallor, which was accentuated by her black dress; her sapphire blue eyes looked unnaturally large and clear; the little white hands clasped in her lap were too slender; a few silver threads glistened in the soft, brown hair. Above all, the hopeless expression of the sad and gentle face went ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... of all sizes up to a large hen-egg, and of all colors except green. He particularly remembers being given several beautiful specimens, including blue, red, yellow, violet, gray, and white stones, all transparent; a black stone, and a brown-gray opaque stone. These were, of course, the sapphire, ruby, topaz, amethyst, and other varieties of corundum, the islands evidently containing no emeralds or diamonds. Lilama selected from a tray a stone the color of pigeon-blood, and about the size ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... we left Crepy-en-Valois we entered the Forest of Compiegne, a forest of noble beeches which rose tall and straight and grey like the piers of Beauvais Cathedral, their arms meeting overhead in an intricate vaulting through which we saw the winter sun in a sapphire sky. We met two Chasseurs d'Afrique, mounted on superb Arabs and wearing red fez-like caps and yellow collar-bands. They were like figures out of a canvas of Meissonier, recalling the spacious days when men went into action with all the pomp and circumstance of war, drums beating, colours flying, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... on the platform, and the engine was backing its one car down to receive me and the other unhappy toilers compelled to go away and leave that sapphire-blue lake behind. ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... sky and a cold of 12 deg. below zero. The Muonio valley was superb, towards sunrise, with a pale, creamy, saffron light on the snow, the forests on the tops of the hills burning like jagged masses of rough opal, and the distant range of Palastyntre bathed in pink light, with pure sapphire shadows on its northern slopes. These Arctic illuminations are transcendent; nothing can equal them, and neither pen nor pencil can describe them. We passed through Muonioniska, and kept up the Russian side, over an undulating, wooded country. The road was quite good, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... gems (sapphire, ruby, and other colored varieties), no sapphires of fine blue color and no rubies of fine red color have been found. The only locality which has been at all prolific is the placer ground between Ruby and Eldorado bars, on the Missouri River, sixteen miles east of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... river seems from heaven's blue; And gods above, who see her dainty line Matched, when thou drinkest, with thy darker hue, Will think they see a pearly necklace twine Round Earth, with one great sapphire in ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... you will force my modesty to the confession I believe in my heart that it is a sapphire. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... by a tiny stream that fell in a series of ribbonlike cataracts a sheer thousand feet from the snow-peaks that towered above them. Small, parklike clumps of spruce dotted the miniature valley; over it hung a sky as blue as sapphire and under their feet was a carpet of soft grass sprayed with little ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... sea was sapphire fair, And the waves told, with little rippling glees, Of ships that sailed, and then returned to bear Their ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard

... nor end. Their number, four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever on the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, signified wisdom. The blue of the sapphire, faith. The verdure of the emerald, hope. The redness of the ruby, charity. And splendour of the topaz, good works." "By these conceits," continued the historian, "Innocent endeavoured to repay John ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... here to-day Hath warrant fair, ye say; We come with you to consecrate A hero's, ay a prophet's monument; Yet needs he none, who was so great; Vainly they build in Cuba's isle afar His sepulcher beside the sapphire sea; He hath for cenotaph a continent, For funeral wreaths, the forests waving free, And round his grave go ceaselessly The morning and the evening star. Yet is it fit that ye should praise him best, For ye his true descendants are, A ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... was there ever dome like that which glowed over my head imagined by the brain of man? "Fretted with golden fires," and studded with such glorious clouds, that it were almost sinful not to believe that each veiled an angel; the vast concave, based all around upon the sapphire horizon, sprang upwards, terminating above me in that deep, deep, immeasurable blue, the best type of eternity;—was not this a fitting temple for worship? What frankincense was ever equal to that which ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... to Hymettus might one follow them; also that precious stone may be found, though, alack! often enough a man is so poor a lapidary that, seeing only the covering of circumstances, he misses the true sapphire! and for that fragrant leaf, I have heard ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... revenge on wrong I never wrought By excommunication from the free Inheritance that all created life, Beside myself, is born to—from the wings That range your own immeasurable blue, Down to the poor, mute, scale-imprison'd things, That yet are free to wander, glide, and pass About that under-sapphire, whereinto Yourselves transfusing you ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... ravishing and strange, with their shining crescents and outstretched shafts of wood that call to the great birds of space. Spite of ourselves we raise our heads, fascinated by all the beauty that is in the air; but there is only this square of marvellous sky, a sort of limpid sapphire, set in the battlements of El-Azhar and fringed by those audacious slender towers. We are in the religious East of olden days and we feel how the mystery of this magnificent court—whose architectural ornament consists merely in geometrical designs repeated to ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... upon her face; two between her brows, one defining the round of each fair cheek. Her eyes showed fathomless sapphire: whatever her thoughts were of they held the secret close. Their gaze was one of fascination, as if she saw things in the fire terrible and strange, figures of the past or of the future, from which she could not turn her face. The curve of her upper lip, where it ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... gems above mentioned are assigned to Media chiefly by Pliny. The Median emeralds, according to him, were of the largest size; they varied considerably, sometimes approaching to the character of the sapphire, in which case they were apt to be veiny, and to have flaws in them. They were far less esteemed than the emeralds of many other countries. The Median lapis lazuli, on the other hand, was the best of its kind. It ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... steaming woods. With the sun, with a final rush of the hurrying wind, a final torrent, the storm spent itself, and there was only the drip from bough and leaf, or pearly opalescent points of moisture on the drenched black trunks of maple and oak; a sapphire sky, high arched, remote overhead; and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... saw that wondrous Figure standing serene and smiling between the retiring waves of electric radiance. I saw the great inner sphere revolve, and glitter as it rolled, like an enormous diamond encircled with gold and sapphire, and then all suddenly the air grew dim and cloudy, and the sensation of falling became more and more rapid. Azul was beside me still, and I also perceived the outline of my guardian Angel's form, though that was growing indistinct. I now recalled the request ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... unaware of him. Her eyes were deep pools of sapphire. She was smiling gently and brooding above something which nestled in her arms. He called to her softly; she paid him no attention. Far below the ridge, in obedience to his commands, the animals were still shouting. Was it because of them that she was smiling? Had ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson

... was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness, as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw, as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, And the sleeper wakes on his pillow ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... ruffians with their brown faces and brightly coloured clothing, lying idly about in the sun, or chattering together at the top of their voices in little groups. They had seemed to look at her, too, with friendly eyes. And she saw the sapphire sea which parted in dazzling white foam from the prow of the boat as they came along, saw the steady sweep of the oars rising and falling rhythmically, the flash of the blades in the sunshine, the well-disciplined faces of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the cauldron's brink, stirring the molten iron In the white-hot glow, a man of white-hot metal: A Cornish ploughboy driving an easy share Through the grey, light soil of a headland, against a sea Of sapphire, gay in his new white corduroys, Blue-eyed, dark-haired, and whistling a careless tune: Jack Johnson, stripped for the ring, in his swarthy pride Of sleek and rippling ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... divert thy care, This snow-white monster fair, Whose waves of dazzling hue Shape silver frames round mirrors sapphire blue. ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... themselves. Marshall's and Bascomb's talk, especially, of cloudless skies of richest blue, out of which the sun darted his flaming rays by day, and in which the stars blazed like jewels at night; of tranquil seas of sapphire in which creatures of strange forms and brilliant hues disported themselves; of tropic shores, coral fringed and clothed with graceful feathery palms backed by noble forest trees of precious woods, made glorious by flowers of every conceivable hue and shape, amid which ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... one of the sofas. At the back of the barmaids rose bevel-edged mirrors, with glass shelves running along their front, on which stood precious liquids that Jude did not know the name of, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby and amethyst. The moment was enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the next compartment, and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale of monies received, which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... could talk French and German; she had taken painting-lessons from real artists, and had some pretty studies for Hanny, in a box not yet unpacked. She had brought the friendship ring, which was two tiny hands clasped over a sapphire with diamond sparks around it. Hanny's eyes shone with delight; she was getting quite a collection ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... sword, long, and three-edged, and heavy. And the scabbard was of red cut leather, and the belt of new red deer-skin, having upon it many golden slides and a buckle of the bone of the sea-horse, the tongue of which was jet-black. A golden helmet was upon the head of the knight, wherein were set sapphire-stones of great virtue. And at the top of the helmet was the figure of a flame-coloured lion, with a fiery-red tongue, issuing above a foot from his mouth, and with venomous eyes, crimson-red, in his head. And the knight came, bearing in his hand a thick ashen lance, the head whereof, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... walls were alabaster, the roof gold, Ivory the doors, the sapphire windows lent Whence on my heart of old Its earliest sigh, as shall my last, was sent; In arrowy jets of fire thence came and went Arm'd messengers of love, whereof to think As then they were, with awe —Though ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... minarets of a white city. The sun, not long risen, gilded its graceful contours and threw the rest of a wondrous picture into shadow so sharp that the whole exquisite vista might have been an intaglio cut in the sapphire of the sky. The Danube, a broad streak of silver, blended with the blue Tave to frame a glimpse of fairyland. For one thrilling moment Alec forgot its bloodstained history and looked only on the fair domain spread before his eyes. Then the black girders ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... blue, sapphires may be permitted (a gray sapphire is best); pearls, the greenish turquoise, moonstones, intaglios, cameos, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... and a diamond ring. In a letter to the purchaser, she stated that they were genuine, having been examined by a goldsmith in The Hague, and were worth L11 4s. In exchange, the Moseleys received five cows and four oxen. Having still in her possession a ruby ring, a sapphire and an emerald ring, Mrs. Moseley could be gracious in parting with her gems and wrote Colonel Yeardley, she had rather his wife wear them than any gentlewoman she yet knew in the country, and wished her "health and prosperity" in her display ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester

... of relief as she saw him go. She felt as though a horrible oppression had passed out of the atmosphere. That fairy haunt with its bubbling fountain and sapphire lamps was no ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... a perfect June evening, the fitting sequel to a day of unbroken sunshine. A marvelous amber light hovered beyond the level line of the sea to the west; an exquisite blue suffused the horizon from south to east, deepening from sapphire to ultramarine as it blended with the soft shadows of a summer's night. He found himself comparing the sky's southeasterly tint with the azure depths of Cynthia Vanrenen's eyes, but he shook off that fantasy quickly, crossed the roadway and promenade, and, propping himself against the railings, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... sparkled with the smiling farewell of the sun. The hills of Visens upon this side were empurpled, and shewed like a promontory of coral, in front of the stagnant lake of the ether, which was bright with a sapphire-like transparency. But, on the east, in front of you, the horizon again spread out to the very point of intersection of the seven valleys. The castle which had formerly guarded them still stood with its keep, its lofty walls, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... may my life be evermore I 1 Pure in each holy word and deed By those eternal laws decreed That pace the sapphire-paven floor! Children of Heaven, of Ether born, No mortal knew their natal morn, Nor may Oblivion's waters deep E'er lull their wakeful spirit asleep, Nor creeping Age o'erpower the mighty God Who far within them holds his ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... sapphire and sulphur and amber, Scarlet, and flame, and green, While five-foot apes did scramble and clamber, In ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare

... while the god-like face expressed a mild regret, not for the world which the ruler had left, but for the people condemned to the sufferings of temporal existence. On its head the image of the pharaoh had an Egyptian cap with white and sapphire stripes; on its neck, a string of jewels; on its breast, the picture of a man kneeling with crossed hands; on its legs, images of the gods, sacred birds, and eyes, not set into any face, but, as it were, gazing ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... were fool enough to write to me about it, would I share my grand secret with him? No. Gently, with his poker, I prodded that volume further among the coals. The all-but-consumed binding shot forth little tongues of bright colour—flamelets of sapphire, amethyst, emerald. Charming! Could even the author herself not admire them? Perhaps. Poor woman!—I had scored now, scored so perfectly that I felt myself to be almost a brute while I poked off the loosened ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... me," continued Hartman, looking up with a bright smile, as at the recollection of some celestial vision, "was as different from this one as the purest diamond from a lump of charcoal. She was a radiant blonde, with golden hair and sapphire eyes and a blooming complexion. In the darkest hour of my life she appeared to me a heavenly messenger! They were leading me from the Court House to the jail, after my sentence. I was passing amid the hooting crowd, bowed down with despair, when this fair vision ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... of the same class. Together they watched the glories of the transformation scene shifting before them. Low on the horizon the deepest crimson changing and blending as it rose into violet; higher up the blue of the sapphire and the green of the emerald; and when these colours were the most intense, the two rose, and turned back to camp slowly and reluctantly, still gazing in silence. For now the after-glow succeeded; first the sky was a most brilliant orange, such a tint as would cause ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... hold it up to the sun, it would give out a light like this. It might have been an elixir of life, for it gave back the Abbey's youth, and more than its youthful beauty. The bullet-shattered stone turned to blocks of pink and golden topaz, and each carving stood out clear, rimmed with sapphire shadow, as we wandered round the cruciform Gothic ruin, our feet noiseless on the faded velvet of the grass. Even in the darkest shadow there lay a ruby flush, like a glow of fire under a thick film of ash; but inside the Abbey was a soft, gray gloom, as if evening hid in ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the sun goes down over the distant Argolic hills his rays spread a clear pathway of gold across the waters. Islands, seas, mountains far and near, are touched now with shifting hues,—saffron, violet, and rose,—beryl, topaz, sapphire, amethyst. There will never be another landscape like unto this in all the world. Gladly we sum up our thoughts in the cry of a son of Athens, Aristophanes, master of song, who loved her with that love which the land of Athena can ever ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... hear discourses on antenatal existence, or, as the vulgar asserted, to find out the future by the aid of the black art, soothsaying by Chaldee talismans engraved on precious stones, by incantations with a glass and water, by moonshine on the walls, by the magic mirror, the reflection of a sapphire, a sieve, or cymbals; fortune-telling by the veins of the hand, or consultations with ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... Lavinia Talbot is wife of the present Bishop of Winchester] to have my bagful of silver dressing-things Papa gave me, and the little diamond and sapphire bangle I am so fond of; and tell her what a joy it has been to know her, and that the little open window has let in many sunrises on my married life. ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... Maricha heard Obedient to his master's word, Threw off his giant shape and near The cottage strayed a beauteous deer. With magic power, by rapid change, His borrowed form was fair and strange. A sapphire tipped each horn with light; His face was black relieved with white. The turkis and the ruby shed A glory from his ears and head. His arching neck was proudly raised, And lazulites beneath it blazed. With roseate bloom his flanks were dyed, And lotus tints adorned his ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... the matter, being the most precious of the metals, signified wisdom, which is the most precious of all the accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue color of the sapphire represented Faith; the verdure of the emerald, Hope; the redness of the ruby, Charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good works." Jewelers, who usually deal so little in sentiment in their works, may ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... overlooks the lake, watching the steamer from Lucerne creeping slowly to the landing-place at the head of a white comet it has churned the indescribable blue of the lake to, and discussing whether it is nearest to Oriental sapphire or to green ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... is not in me: And the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, With the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it: Neither shall the exchange thereof be jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal: Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, Neither shall it be valued with pure gold. Whence then cometh wisdom? ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... sapphire arch of morn The tides of light and bird-song mingled roll, A softer radiance falls upon my soul, A sweeter music to mine ear ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard

... they saw that they were in a noble hall, whose crystal roof was supported by two rows of crystal pillars rising from a crystal floor; and the walls were of crystal, and along the walls were crystal couches, with coverings and cushions of sapphire ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... she ever forget that serene May day when the air was liquid gold, and the Mediterranean molten sapphire, wreathed with pearls, as the wavelets crested; when the rosy oleanders and silvery flakes of orange blossoms floated down upon the ferny cliff, where sitting by her father's side, she had drawn this design, spreading the linen on the back of her father's worn copy of Theocritus? ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... hour have come To choose a fitting bride For that Spirit who from his wat'ry home, Speaks forth in might and pride; Whilst the zephyrs toy with his sapphire waves, He would bear her down to ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... a little way in silence together. The night was moon-lit and clear; not a wind stirred the leaves; the sky was like a sapphire, containing but not shedding light. The late oleanders smelled very sweet; the moon was so full that one could distinguish the peculiar ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... was enslaved by the miraculous pageant of the visible earth, and he sought tirelessly to transfix some moment of its wonder or its splendour or its terror in permanent images of tone. The melancholy beauty of the autumn woods, the loveliness of quiet waters under fading skies, the sapphire and emerald glories, or the ominous chantings, of the sea, the benign and mysterious majesty of summer stars, the lyric sweetness of a meadow: these things urged him to musical transcripts, notations of loving tenderness and sincerity. His music is redolent of ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... the Golden House; thither, the palaces of the grim Tiberius; beyond, Pompeii, with Glaucus, lone, and Nydia, the blind girl. The dream-picture faded and the reality was no less fascinating: the white sails of the fishermen winging across the sapphire waters, leaving ribboned pathways behind that crossed and recrossed like a chart of the stars; proud white pleasure-yachts, great vessels from all ports in the world; and an occasional battle-ship, drab and stealthy. And ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... hundred feet above the waters, with grassy slopes, and rocky cliffs barren and desolate. Bowers of olive and oleander deck the base of the hills whose sides yield abundant harvest. Around the lake is a level white beach of smooth sand. Gennesaret has been fittingly compared to a sapphire set in diamonds; and to a mirror set in a frame of ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... sapphire bracelet Lady Mountstuart gave me, if he didn't tell you he loved you, and ask if there'd be a chance for him ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a little commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves - he Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a ring made which shall either represent ANNE or A. S. Y. A., of course, would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway and was my father's before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he meet the case, the two N.'s? These things are beyond my knowledge, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird's wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... the dark "Pride of Columbia," as his college-mates fondly called him, now dreamed of nothing but Alice Worthington's golden hair and sapphire blue eyes, as the cable-car bore him swiftly downward to the office of Hatch & Ferris, ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... remained, of course, at Glencardine, as he always did. Lady Heyburn looked upon her winter visit to that beautiful villa overlooking the calm sapphire sea as her annual emancipation. Henry was a dear old fellow, she openly confided to her friends, but his affliction made him ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... leave of her Majesty, which was done with a great deal of weeping on my part, she handed me a beautiful sapphire-and-diamond brooch and a very large photograph signed by her dear hand en souvenir. The King gave Johan his photograph and the decoration of la couronne d'Italie. The day passed only too quickly. I cannot tell you how miserable I was to take leave of their Majesties, ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... thou standest there, Beautiful, boundless firmament! That, swelling wide o'er earth and air, And round the horizon bent, With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses nothing of its sadness—perhaps is made more sad—by the unsympathetic aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... of the change, for after a first attempt to force her confidences on Susy she had contented herself with vague expressions of gratitude, allusive smiles and sighs, and the pretty "surprise" of the sapphire bangle slipped onto her friend's wrist in the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... Dragon fly Come from the wells where he did lie. An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... knelt by the table to light the lamp under the kettle, while she measured out the tea into a little tea-pot of green glaze. As he watched her hand, polished as a bit of old ivory, with its slender pink nails, and the sapphire bracelet slipping over her wrist, he was struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousin Gertrude Farish had chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... in value and hardness ranks next to the diamond; is dichroic, of greater specific gravity than any other gem, and belongs to the hexagonal system of crystals; is a pellucid, ruddy-tinted stone, and, like the sapphire, a variety of corundum, also found (but rarely) in violet, pink, and purple tints; the finest specimens come from Upper Burmah; these are the true Oriental rubies, and when above 5 carats exceed in value, weight for weight, diamonds; the Spinel ruby is the commoner jeweller's ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... away among the sparkling waves I saw a little island, with shores of silver sand and slopes of fairest green, and in the middle of the island the Blue Flower was growing, wondrous tall and dazzling, brighter than the sapphire of the sea. Then the call of the distant trumpet came floating across the water, and while it was sounding a shimmer of fog swept over the island and I could see ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke

... ardent modulations of the sound, the slight play of the beautiful lips, the still, deep sapphire gleam in those long eyes inherited from the dawn of ages and that seemed always to watch unimaginable things, that underlying faint ripple of gaiety that played under all her moods as though it had been a gift from the high gods moved to pity ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... exactly four o'clock when he was ushered into Quarrier's private suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... clothing I could find; tunics and cloaks of pure silk and of the brightest or most effeminate hues; crimson, emerald-green, peacock-green, grass-green, apple-green, sea-green, sapphire-blue, sky- blue, turquoise-blue, saffron, orange, amethystine, violet and any and every unusual tint; boots of glazed kidskin or of dull finish soft skin, of hues like my silk garments, always with the edges of the soles heavily gilded. And, for my shoes as well as for ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to relieve himself ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... such a time the sea looks as blue as the sky above it, while here on this particular hot day, though the sky was as blue as a sapphire stone, the hills were of a beautiful soft green, the grass being short and soft, and as velvety as if Nature had been all over it regularly ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn

... gravelled walkways were snow beneath the sun, and were in shadow transmuted to dim violet tints; and for the rest, green ranging from the sober foliage of yew and box and ilex to the pale glow of young grass In the full sunlight; all green, save where the lake shone, a sapphire green-girdled. Spring triumphed with a vaunting pageant. And in the forest, in the air, even in the unplumbed sea-depths, woke the mating impulse,—irresistible, borne as it might seem on the slow-rising ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... conflagration rushing towards us from behind. And these coruscations formed, on the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a Rose, its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and diamond and sapphire. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lambent flame of fire-opal; the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems—sapphire, jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony—their valleys swimming with mists of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the roadside ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... but perchance to a bit of earth fetched from the other side of the planet, which possibly they may find at the apothecary's, but which probably neither they nor we ever saw? Have we not an earth under our feet,—ay, and a sky over our heads? Or is the last all ultramarine? What do we know of sapphire, amethyst, emerald, ruby, amber, and the like,—most of us who take these names in vain? Leave these precious words to cabinet-keepers, virtuosos, and maids-of-honor,—to the Nabobs, Begums, and Chobdars of Hindostan, or wherever else. I do not see why, since America and her autumn woods have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... there is something singularly unreasonable about almost all floral symbolism. There is your forget-me-not, pink in the bud, and sapphire in the flower, with a fruit that breaks up into four, the very picture of inconstancy and discursiveness. Yet your lover, with a singular blindness, presents this to his lady when they part. Then the white water-lily is supposed to represent purity of heart, and, mark ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... and sapphire blue, And ruby red, and em'rald green, Dart from the domes a changing hue, And sparry columns deck ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... and mysterious vales, as fair as fathomless. It floated up like a cloud from the nether world, and was at first without form and void, even as its fellows were; but as we drew nearer—for we were steaming toward it across a sea of sapphire,—it brooded upon the face of the water, while the clouds that had hung about it were scattered and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... due time they would recover their health and strength. The glorious tropical sun that had arisen was shining benignantly in their faces, and brightening everything around, while the breeze, blowing fresh upon them from a serene sapphire-coloured sea, cooled their fevered blood. They felt already reviving. The sensations they experienced were those of one who, late suffering from sea-sickness, pent up in the state-room of a storm-tossed ship, with all its vile odours around him, has been ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid



Words linked to "Sapphire" :   jewel, precious stone, corundum, blueness, gem, chromatic, blue, corundom, transparent gem, azure



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