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INTRODUCTION.
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from the Asteria, the rich colors combined with high lustre that distinguish the ruby, the sapphire, and the topaz, beautiful as they appear upon near inspection, are almost entirely lost to the distant beholder; while the Diamond, on the contrary, whether blazing on the crown of state, or diffusing its starry radiance from the breast of titled merit, or wreathing itself with the hair, and entering ambitiously into contest with the living lustre of those eyes that "rain influence" on all beholders, proclaims to the most distant of the surrounding crowd, the person of the monarch, the noble, or the beauty.
