In the age of acorns, before the times of Ceres, a single barley-corn had been of more value to mankind than all the diamonds of the mines of India. – Henry Brooke
All the luminous the coloured spectacles which the world in the immensity of space can offer us, nature has produced in miniature amongst precious stones. – Charles Blanc, Art in Ornament and Dress, 1875, translated from French