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Topaz   /tˈoʊpˌæz/   Listen
Topaz

noun
1.
A yellow quartz.  Synonyms: common topaz, false topaz.
2.
A mineral (fluosilicate of aluminum) that occurs in crystals of various colors and is used as a gemstone.
3.
A light brown the color of topaz.  Synonym: tan.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Topaz" Quotes from Famous Books



... little as if in remonstrance or entreaty; and he paused to listen. He could not, however, distinguish what was said; and in the meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about, his bands were still employed in opening and shutting the drawers, passing through the pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which he thought could not fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny. One of the recesses was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch was there; he stretched his hand into the recess; and, as the room was partially darkened by the lower shutters from without, which were still ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... knew me, but it isn't our Sancho; he was a lovely dog." Betty said that to the little boy peeping in beside her; but before he could make any reply, the brown beast stood straight up with an inquiring bark, while his eyes shone like topaz, and the short ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... manner of white man and savage, all more animated than was the wont of these sullen Runners of the Burnt Woods, they passed back and forth among the fires, and presently McElroy caught the gleam of liquid that shone like rubies or topaz in the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... his hands were not in keeping with a Hellenic face. They were thick, roughened with needle and hot iron and plow-handle. Even in the shop he persisted in his finery. He wore a silk shirt, a topaz scarf, thin tan shoes. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... cannot, by the keenest eye, be distinguished from the natural amber, the latter, however, by[158] friction attracts cotton, but the manufactured amber does not; this is the only criterion by which they ascertain the true from the false amber. They also compose artificial stones with equal sagacity; the topaz, the emerald, and the ruby they imitate to perfection. The wool with which they make shawls almost equal in appearance to those of Kashmere, is procured from the sheep of the province of Tedla, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... exclaimed Belle. 'I'm sure my back perfectly aches with stooping, and so does Cathie's. There! that big topaz has just gone and rolled under the sideboard, and mother will be so angry if I don't get it out! It is too bad of you, Priscilla! I believe you ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares. She viewed them with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune to terrors of ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... in the faint glittering of the gilding, and the exquisite symmetry of its execution. The bearings appeared to me as—party per pall,—dexter division.—Sapphire a cross gules ensigned with fleur de lis between six martlets topaz.—Sinister—quarterly sapphire and ruby, first and third, three fleur de lis; topaz, second and fourth, three lions passant gardant of the same, supported by two angels, and surmounted by a coronet; the whole resting on an angel bearing a scroll with a motto ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... Papa Pio, between the tiara and the cross-keys. On each of the four sides of this ring appears one of the four beasts of the Revelation, typifying the Evangelists: they are executed in high relief. It is set with a large topaz. This ring has since passed into Mr. Waterton's fine collection, who is the fortunate possessor of others of the same class. One in the Londesborough collection is here engraved, Fig. 128, as a good specimen of the general design adopted for such rings. The crossed-keys surmount a coat of arms ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... admiration at a new tree, whose symmetrical gray trunk rises like a mighty fluted column, from which graceful limbs spread out to form a glorious canopy. Its serrated leaves, each an emerald in that vast corona of verdure, will become in autumn a topaz in its gleaming crest. When the snows of many winters shall have clothed its slender, drooping branches with clinging drapery of star flowers and many springs thatched its myriad twigs with emerald that droop like sprays of art, it too shall grow hoary and give ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... to the garment; in these buttons were enclosed two very large and very excellent sardonyxes, having the names of the tribes of that nation engraved upon them: on the other part there hung twelve stones, three in a row one way, and four in the other; a sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; a carbuncle, a jasper, and a sapphire; an agate, an amethyst, and a ligure; an onyx, a beryl, and a chrysolite; upon every one of which was again engraved one of the forementioned names of the tribes. A mitre also ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... blossoms from Hester's garden, some of which Anne carried to the cemetery next day and laid upon Hester's grave. Minstrel robins were whistling in the firs and the frogs were singing in the marshes. All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... cabinet (see page 239), of mosaic work in lapis lazuli, pietra dura, topaz, agates, etc., one of the finest specimens of the kind ever seen,—it eventually came into the possession of Mr. Hurst, who asked fifteen hundred [Picture: Gothic Chimney-piece] guineas for it—a magnificent carved oak chimney-piece (see page 240); chairs which belonged to Queen ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, The sumach added its crimson fleck, And double in air and water showed The tinted maples along the Neck; Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist, And gentian fringes of amethyst, And royal ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seemed Better to leave Excalibur concealed There in the many-knotted ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... my fellow-labourers, the need of brethren, who labour in the Word, was again especially brought before the Lord, as I had reason to believe many were in need, and I had nothing to send them. This evening I received from Shropshire 2 gold chains, a diamond brooch, and a topaz brooch, with the request of the donor to sell them for the benefit of brethren who labour in the Word. This donation has greatly refreshed my spirit, but I look out for more, far more.—Oct. 4. From E. B. 5l. for missions.—From a Missionary box at Stroud 3l. 0s. 7d.—Oct. ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... eye of the sun rose up—still somewhat sleepy, it blinked and trembled and shook its gleaming lashes; it glittered with seven tints at once: at first sapphire, it straightway turned blood red like a ruby, and yellow as a topaz; next it sparkled transparent as crystal, then was radiant as a diamond; finally it became the colour of pure flame, like a great moon, or like a twinkling star: thus over the measureless ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... the Immortals. What we lack recalls the fullness. The soul has seen a brighter day than this and a sun which never sets. Hence the retrospect: "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, emerald.... Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire." We would point out these radiant avenues of return; but sometimes we feel ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... picketed the horse he had been riding, and built a small fire, and began to cook his supper. All around him, brooding and unreal, was the light you get in high mountain places. The fire shone like a tiny ruby set in topaz. Mackintosh raised his head and saw a woman coming out of the spur of aspen trees across the creek from him. He wasn't surprised; he knew right away who it was; he knew it was the girl. He watched her for a moment, and then ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... 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 of an English walnut, which she handed to Pym as she might have handed him a beautiful ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... as a child when he was sensitive and lonely. She had always mocked the memory of his mother. Brown and lovely his cousin's face rose before him in a willful moment of tenderness—and then from the shadows came again the flash of topaz and Venetian lamps and the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... very large and long, extending nearly the whole length of the house. There were many windows with Eastern rugs instead of curtains. There were Eastern things hung on the walls which gave out dull gleams of gold and silver and topaz and turquoise. There were a great many books on low shelves. There were bronzes, jars, and squat idols. There were a few pieces of Chinese ivory work. There were many skins of lions, bears, and tigers on the floor, ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... and her feet were bare. Her black hair hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked as if she had just ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke

... carefully, filtering the muddy part at the bottom through several thicknesses of cheese cloth. Put in a clean vessel for two months longer, then bottle and seal. If the bottles are laid on the side, and the wine carefully decanted it will show a bright golden yellow with much the translucence of topaz. It reaches perfection at a year. Being rather heavy it is improved to many palates by adding ice-cold vichy after it ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... hawk flew before him, and he followed it to a chamber lit with golden lamps, gorgeously hung, and full of a dusky splendour and the faint sparkle of gems, ruby, amethyst, topaz, and beryl; in it there was the hush of sleep, and the heart of Shibli Bagarag told him that one beautiful was near. So he approached on tiptoe a couch of blue silk, bordered with gold-wire, and inwoven with stars of blue turquoise stones, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a personable man himself. He was tall and broad shouldered, with abundant brown hair and beard, and a winning smile. His eyes were dark and introspective, but they could glow like sunlit topaz, or grow dim with tears, as his congregation had opportunity to observe during this first sermon—but they were ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... calmness for all the period, the fourteen 'halcyon days,' during which this bird was brooding over her nest. The poetry of the name survives, whether the name suggested the legend, or the legend the name. Take again the names of some of our precious stones, as of the topaz, so called, as some said, because men were only able to conjecture ([Greek: topazein]) the position of the cloud-concealed island from which it was brought. [Footnote: Pliny, H. N. xxxvii. 32. [But this is only popular etymology: the word can hardly be of Greek origin; see A. S. Palmer, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... produces many other precious stones, among which are the ruby, amethyst, topaz, garnet, pearl, agate, turquoise, and chalcedony, besides onyx and many ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... good works. His good deeds and prayers I bottle up here in heaven, See that beautiful mansion yonder with its gates of gold and walls of jasper, its floors of transparent glass, its corridors of chalcedony, and colonades of topaz and beryl. That mansion is to be his home when his pilgrimage in that under-world is done. By his holy walk and devoted life he is now confessing me before men, and I take great delight in telling you that he is my child and in confessing him before you and my Father on his throne. ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... a vault of purple with a flaming topaz in the center; the sea, a heavenly blue; the warm air breathed heavenly odors; flaming macaws wheeled overhead; humming-birds, more gorgeous than any flower, buzzed round their heads, and amazed the eye with delight, then cooled it with the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... moistening his lips with the topaz-colored liquid—"it is a little bruised. I wouldn't have served it—better lay it aside for a month or two in the decanter. Are all your corks down to ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... water-drops hanging on the bending stalks of grass, sparkled his rays in varied refraction, transformed here to a gorgeous burning ruby, there to an emerald, green as the grass, and yonder to a flashing, sunny topaz. The chanting priest-lark had gone up from the low earth, as soon as the heavenly light had begun to enwrap and illumine the folds of its tabernacle; and had entered the high heavens with his offering, whence, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... nodding up and down in the mellow gleam. A flowering dogwood bathed in its ethereal light shimmers like a bridal veil adorning a wood nymph. It lays its gentle touch on the waterfall, transforming it into a torrent of molten silver, and causing each drop to glisten like topaz under its witching light. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... the mouth of some terrible monster lying hidden among the weeds; others with strange, striped shells crawled snail-like over the bottom, amidst many so small that they were mere specks. And all the while, as the boat glided on over the surface, there were flashes of gold, silver, ruby, topaz, sapphire, and amethyst, for shoals of fish, startled by their coming, darted through the sunlit water, to hide in the waving groves of sea-weed, or nestle ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... the lot by fortune given: Lo, now he climbs, with fairy power to aid, The bark's steep side, on silken cordage stay'd; Gains the smooth deck, and, wonders to behold, A couch of cypress spread with cloth of gold, While from above, with many a topaz bright, Two golden globes sent forth their branching light: And longer had he gaz'd, but sleep profound, Wrought by the friendly fairy, wrapt him round. Stretch'd on the couch the hunter lies supine, And the swift ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... as if some fairy alchemist had melted in magic crucible topaz, ruby, sapphire, gold, and amethyst, to deck each fragrant cup ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of that first splendour, when the sky Was topaz-clear with hope, and life-blood-red With thoughts of mighty poets, lavishly Round all the fifty years' horizon shed:— Now in our glades the Aglaian Graces gleam, Around our fountains throng, And change Ilissus' banks for Thames and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... Phaeton with the whip him whirls. * * While shortly, with the blazing torch of day, Abulyit[7] in his lemand[8] fresh array, Forth of his palace royal ished Phoebus, With golden crown and visage glorious, Crisp hairs, bright as chrysolite or topaz; For whose hue might none behold his face. * * The aureate vanes of his throne soverain With glittering glance o'erspread the oceane; The large floodes, lemand all of light, But with one blink of his supernal sight. For to behold, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... haste to destroy every vestige of it. A similar feeling prevails respecting precious stones,—the branch of mineralogy which first gains the attention of a rude people. From the geological character of the Syrian mountains, there is no doubt that Palestine might boast of the topaz, the emerald, the chryso-beryl, several varieties of rock-crystal, and also of the finer jaspers. The Sacred Writings prove that the Jews were acquainted with a considerable variety of ornamental stones, as may be seen in the description of the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... its tiles 30 Is the roof of the dome. The ruin sank to earth, Broken in heaps —there where heroes of yore, Glad-hearted and gold-bedecked, in gorgeous array, Wanton with wine-drink in war-trappings shone: They took joy in jewels and gems of great price, 35 In treasure untold and in topaz-stones, In the firm-built fortress of a far-stretching realm. The stone courts stood; hot streams poured forth, Wondrously welled out. The wall encompassed all In its bright embrace. Baths were there then, 40 Hot all within —a healthful convenience. ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... only laugh at me, for there was no one else on the stage. Was there not, indeed! In an agony of humiliation I turned half about and found myself facing an absolutely monstrous cat. Starlike he held the very centre of the stage, his two great topaz eyes were fixed roundly and unflinchingly upon my face. On his body and torn ears he carried the marks of many battles. His brindled tail stood straightly and aggressively in the air, and twitched with short, quick twitches, at its very tip, truly ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... anything of George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... which puts one in mind of Attila's queen, Zingis's lieutenant, and Timour. "The old divan, upon which the Sultans formerly reclined when they gave audience, looks like an overgrown four-poster, covered with carbuncles, turquoise, amethysts, topaz, emeralds, ruby, and diamond: the couch was covered with Damascus ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... months to which they are assigned by those soothtellers who know all the signs for luck, good or ill: For January, garnet; February, amethyst; March, jasper; April, sapphire; May, chalcedony; June, emerald; July, onyx; August, carnelian; September, chrysolite; October, aquamarine; November, topaz; December, ruby. ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... she addressed Miss Fowler, who looked obdurate. She cast a helpless glance at the cat, who opened surprising topaz eyes and looked supercilious. Then she turned to Hugh. "It seemed to me," she said, steadily, "that I could make you understand—I mean I could express myself more clearly if I could see you, than I could by writing, but—it is ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said Anthea when Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels—the topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with great-grandpapa's hair in it,—that's ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... bits of glass, ruby-red, emerald-green, sapphire-blue, topaz-yellow, set in the windows of old cathedrals, could speak, they would say proudly that they are the work of Alan of York and Josian, the daughter ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... softened and soldered together, without injuring their colour, or even diminishing their weights. The hyacinth, tho' almost equally fixed with the ruby, loses its colour very readily. The Saxon and Brasilian topaz, and the Brasilian ruby, lose their colour very quickly, and lose about a fifth of their weight, leaving a white earth, resembling white quartz, or unglazed china. The emerald, chrysolite, and garnet, are almost instantly melted into an opake ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... on, thoughtfully: "I'd like to do her hair for her, and see that all her under-things were right, and then put her into a crepe gown of dull blue—a sort of Chinese blue, with a great deal of deep-toned lace for trimming, and give her a topaz pendant set in dull silver, and a big picture hat of ecru net, with a good deal of the lace on it, and one long plume, a little lighter ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... also the substance of the beautifully variegated jasper, the lapis lazuli, the green malachite, and the opal, with its cloudy milk-whiteness through which flashes its heart of fire. Silica and alumina combine to make common clay, but alumina forms itself into the red ruby, the golden-tinted topaz, the violet oriental amethyst, the red, white, yellow, and violet sapphire, and the beautiful green emerald. With substances of such rare capabilities we may expect rich results in color ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... clothes' presses, and store-rooms; and ostrich feathers sent to Lower Egypt are sprinkled with it. A recent traveller found in the head of a mummy, of a superior kind, a balsam, in colour and transparency like a pink topaz. It burned with a beautiful clear flame, and emitted a very fragrant odour, in which cinnamon predominated. In the heart of one of the mummies he found about three drams of pure nitre; the heart being entire, this must ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various

... seemed hard that the toiling woman and the wife and daughter of the toiler might not alleviate their bleak persons with pearl necklaces about their throats, with rubies pendant from their ears, and their fingers studded with sapphire and topaz. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... hymns, many of which won a permanent place in the prayer-book, are not always sad. Often they are warm with hope, and there is a lilt about them which is almost gay. His chief secular poem, "The Topaz" (Tarshish), is in ten parts, and contains 1210 lines. It is written on an Arabic model: it contains no rhymes, but is metrical, and the same word, with entirely different meanings, occurs at the end of several lines. ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams

... and serpents, and also Rhinoceros, and the beast that hight Cameleon, a beast with many colours. Also there be cockatrices and great dragons, and precious stones be taken out of their brains, Jacinth, and Chrysophrase, Topaz, and many other precious stones be found in those parts, and cinnamon is there gathered. There be two Ethiopias, one is in the east, and the other is in Mauritania in the west, and that is more near Spain. And then is Numidia, and the province of Carthage. Then is Getula, and ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... of their music; nor is the pleasure of the flesh, though felt by the painter and communicated to the spectator, an interruption to their divine calm. The white, saffron-haired goddesses are grouped together like stars seen in the topaz light of evening, like daffodils half smothered in snowdrops, and among them, Diana, with the crescent on her forehead, is the fairest. Her dream-like beauty need fear no comparison with the Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo. Apollo and Bacchus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... 'Why,' he reasoned, 'should I furnish children in science with tools of which they can not comprehend the use?' Delicate tables, chiseled from the humbler gems, were scattered about the chamber; agate, topaz, lapis-lazuli, amethyst, and a smaragdus of miraculous beauty. Chairs of golden wire completed the furniture of this ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... formally appointed general-in-chief of the army to be raised. There was a sort of truncheon or ornamented club, called the topaz, which it was customary on such occasions to bestow, with great solemnity, on the general thus chosen, as his badge of command. The topaz was, in this instance, conferred upon Temujin with all the usual ceremonies. ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... blotches of tawny lights—was cowering in a corner of its cage; its snake-like head, with the broad flat brow and wide curved jaws, was drawn back between its shoulders, its small golden eyes, gleaming like yellow topaz, were ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... you talk to a person wholly unacquainted with these things, will he understand you? Talk to him of stamens, pistils, calyxes; of monandria, diandria, triandria; of gypsum, talc, calcareous spar, quartz, topaz, mica, garnet, pyrites, hornblende, augite, actynolite; of hexahedral, prismatic, rhomboidal, dodecahedral; of acids and alkalies; of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon; of the configuration of the brain, and its relative ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... favourite ornamental stone in Scotland, being set in the lids of snuff-mulls, in the handles of dirks and in brooches for Highland costume. A rich sherry-yellow colour is much esteemed. Quartz of yellow and brown colour is often known in trade as "false topaz," or simply "topaz." Such quartz is found at many localities in Brazil, Russia and Spain. Much of the yellow quartz used in jewellery is said to be "burnt amethyst"; that is, it was originally amethystine quartz, the colour of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... sunk behind the gigantic peaks of the neighboring mountains, making their summits—in the shape of pyramids, needles, and broken obelisks—stand out in bold relief against a background of topaz and amethyst—for such was the appearance of the heavens, gilded by the beams of the setting sun. The shadows began to deepen over the plain, and, on the mountains opposite to those behind which the sun was sinking, the more elevated peaks shone ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... their shrunken and swollen bladders. He knew them every one, he was familiar with and kind to them; but he was aloof from them by temperament and thought, and he showed them his soul no more than the night birds in the towers showed their tawny breasts and eyes of topaz to the hungry and ragged fowls which scratched amongst the dust and refuse on the stones in the ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... 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 learn from this ingenious allegory the advantage of calling up the wonder-working aid of fancy, in forming ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... cushioned seats we rise And to the stairway turn again our eyes; The fourth stage plated o'er with beaten gold We pass, and topaz fifth till we behold The sixth of azure blue; to seventh glide, That glows with silvery summit where reside The gods, within a shrine of silvery sheen Which brightly glows, and from afar is seen. Without the temple, burnished silver ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... almost one with the resurgent vegetation. Here, in October, he was a witness of the jewelled pageant of the dying foliage, and saw the hillsides reeking, as it were, and aflame with ruby and gold and emerald and topaz. One September day in 1900, at the "Kurhaus" at Nauheim, I took up a copy of the Paris New York Herald, and read in capitals: "Death of Professor Thomas Davidson." I had well known how ill he was, yet such was his vitality that the shock was wholly unexpected. I did not realize till ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... to touch, play on, concern, be a duty, fall to one's share or lot. todavia yet, still, nevertheless. todo all, whole, every. tomar to take, take away; toma why! really! tomate m. tomato. tono tone. tonteria foolishness, nonsense. tonto foolish, stupid. topacio topaz. topar to run or strike against. toque m. touch, ringing. Torcuata Torquata. tornar to return, restore; vr. to turn. torno; en —— suyo around him. toro bull. torpe stupid. torre f. tower. torrente m. torrent. tortola ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... all the colours of the bow of heaven. In their hands they bore a coronet, at once rich with jewels, and light and inconsiderable in its weight. The circle was of gold, and studded with diamonds. With the diamonds were intermingled every precious gem, the topaz, the jasper, the emerald, the chrysolite, and the sapphire. The head was of Persian silk, and dyed with Tyrian purple. This coronet they placed upon the head of Imogen, and then descending to the footstool of the throne, bowed upon her feet. The ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... laughed, wrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair straying on his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour, his hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. He seemed like topaz, so ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... these jewels, a pair of topaz earrings, beautifully set in gold, for your wife or daughter, as a token of friendship, keeping always in mind, that women and children are the favorites of the Great Spirit. These jewels are from an ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds,' said Anthea when Martha had Bounced off. 'She was rather a nasty lady, I thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels - the topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with great-grandpapa's hair in it ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... head till it glittered in the sunlight like a topaz. She cared no more for Shakespeare than the average woman does, and she was never quite comfortable ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... the tawny boats go out, and heard the roaring crews? Oh, would you sit with pipe and bowl, and dream upon some sunny quay, Or would you walk the windy heath and drink the cooler air; Oh, would you seek a cradled cove and tussle with the topaz sea!— Pack up your kit to-morrow, lad, and haste ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... rim formed a golden sickle behind a blunt shoulder of rock; while over the eastward levels the topaz-yellow of an Indian dawn rushed at one stride to the zenith of heaven. In the clear light the girl's beauty took on a new distinctness, a new living charm. The upward-sweeping mass of her hair showed the softness of bronze, save where the sun burnished it to copper. Breadth ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... before the congregation. For Archie continued to drink her in with his eyes, even as a wayfarer comes to a well-head on a mountain, and stoops his face, and drinks with thirst unassuageable. In the cleft of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz and the pale florets of primrose fascinated him. He saw the breasts heave, and the flowers shake with the heaving, and marvelled what should so much discompose the girl. And Christina was conscious of his gaze - saw it, perhaps, with the dainty plaything of an ear that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... came nearer to the lake, shaking her head, as though compassionating the poor, folk who lived there. She was beautiful. Her hair was brown, going to tawny, but in this soft light which enwrapped her, she was in a sort of topaz flame. As she came on, suddenly she stopped as though transfixed. She saw the man—and saw ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... tell you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all about it. I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's, with his money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... perhaps the most resplendent and beautiful of its tribe. The fiery topaz (Topaza pyra) is found on the shores of the Rio Negro. The larger part of its feathers are of a blazing scarlet, which contrasts beautifully with the deep velvet-black of the head and part of the neck. The throat is emerald-green, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... possible to classify the thousands of different crystals, since all belong to one of six classes, according as their surfaces are grouped symmetrically around the axes of the crystal. The salt crystal has one form, the topaz another, quartz and beryl another, borax another, and these forms are absolutely unvaried wherever these substances are found in nature or in the chemist's retort. It is not here our intention to point out how impossible it is to assume that there has been an evoluton [tr. note: ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... mystery of the London air, but at the clear vividness of the Persian desert. Away and away, beyond the shimmering sand, gleamed the frosted town with white walls, white domes, white minarets against the horizon band of topaz and amethystine vapours. And in his nostrils was the immemorable smell of the East, and in his ears the startling jingle of the harness and the pad of the camels, and the guttural cries of the drivers, and in his heart the certainty of plucking out ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... shone full in front of him; it seemed as if it must be day and not night—the light from the window was so strong in comparison with the darkness which he had left. There was a subdued shimmer in the tracery where the stained glass gleamed diaphanous—amethyst and topaz, chrysoprase and jasper, a dozen jewels as in the foundations of the city of God. And in the midst, in the head of the centre light, shone out brighter than all, with an inherent radiance of its own, the cognisance of the Blandamers, the sea-green ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... heiress, Marian. You! And five days, ago while I lay abed, wounded, they told me that you, were to marry Ormskirk. I thought I would go mad.... Eh, I remember now. But what do these things matter? Is it not of far greater importance that the sunlight turns your hair to pure topaz?" ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... cut for drawing timber, stacking bark, etc., and what Milton calls so happily "the checkered shade" was seen in all its beauty; for the hot sun struggled in at every aperture, and splashed the leaves and the path with fiery flashes and streaks, and topaz brooches, all intensified in fire and beauty by the cool ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... 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? And where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, And kept close from ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... cold. Tough fibers of the stiff-ranked pines parted with a crackling groan, as though unable to bear silently the reiterant stabbing of the frost needles. The frozen gum of the black spruce glowed like frosted topaz. The naked whips of the quaking asp were brittle traceries against the hard ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... itself, not so far away as to conceal the flashing of waves upon the beach. Daily, over this groundwork, so deftly wrought for their reception, are cast fields and mighty bands of violet and rose, of amber and pale topaz, of blue, orange, and garnet, upon the sea. It is as if an aurora had fallen from Arctic skies, living, changeful, evanescent, athwart sea, plain, and mountain. Here is sore temptation for the colorist; more, perhaps, than by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... precipitate himself; and also caused cords twisted with gold and crimson silk to be made, wherewith to strangle himself; and a sword with the blade of gold to be hammered out to fall upon; and kept poison in vessels of emerald and topaz wherewith to poison himself according as he should like to choose one of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... thumb: About thy wrist, the rich dardanium.[G] Between thy breasts (than down of swans more white) There plays the sapphire with the chrysolite. No part besides must of thyself be known, But by the topaz, opal, chalcedon. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... gone an' done it," Mary commented, one morning in the laundry. They had not been at work ten minutes ere her eye had glimpsed the topaz ring on the third finger of Saxon's left hand. "Who's the lucky one? Charley Long ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... come to be lying in a bunch of sage-brush on the desert? Jewelled, too, and that must have given the final keen point of light to the flame which made him stop short in the sand to pick it up. It was a single clear stone of transparent yellow, a topaz likely, he thought, but wonderfully alive with light, set in the end of the handle, and looking closely he saw a handsome monogram engraved on the side, and made out the letters H. R. But that told ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... the narrow road by the black dog-rose hedge, and so into the high road towards the village. The village was alight at several windows but almost deserted. Out beyond, a coruscation of lights burnt like a group of topaz and rubies set in the silver shield of the night. The festivities of the Flower Show were still in full progress, and the reduction of the entrance fee after seven had drawn in every lingering outsider. The roundabouts churned ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... feathered in their wings.[1] Wherefore I, who am mortal, feel myself in this inequality,[2] and therefore I give not thanks, save with my heart, for thy paternal welcome. Truly I beseech thee, living topaz that dost ingem this precious jewel, that thou make me content with thy name?" "O leaf of mine, in whom, while only awaiting, I took pleasure, I was thy root." Such a beginning he, answering, made to me. Then ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... spaces of the dense June woods a host of grateful leaves wait and beckon. A voice comes from the garden bed; it is the complaint of the pansy. "Here I lie," it says, "with all my jewels low in the dust. Where is the purple of my amethysts, the yellow of my topaz, the inimitable sheen of my milk-white pearls? Alas and alack for pansies when the rain beats them earthward!" The marigold, like a yellow-haired boy with his straw hat well back from his flying mane, whistles softly ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... is a general sense of coming Spring. The elder-bushes are bursting, the buds swelling. A topaz shimmer plays amid the shadowy fringes of the light birch stems, and on the budding tops of the lime-trees. The bushes are decked with catkins. The boughs of the chestnut glisten with pointed reddish buds. Fresh green patches ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... incredible purple tint familiar mostly to painters of West Indian scenery;—once more, under the blaze of noon, it changes to a waste of broken emerald. With evening, the horizon assumes tints of inexpressible sweetness,—pearl-lights, opaline colors of milk and fire; and in the west are topaz-glowings and wondrous flushings as of nacre. Then, if the sea sleeps, it dreams of all these,—faintly, weirdly,—shadowing them even to ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... know, if you were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose four children sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with what their mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best of grasshopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours—Suzette is coming to ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... from their bright emerald colour to a dull topaz yellow, which in turn subsided to their wonted colouring during the Lord ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... animal exhalations, would be rapturously applauded. Behind the perpendicular, oblique, zigzagged, and curved zinc 'tall-boys,' that formed a grey pattern not unlike early Gothic numerals against the sky, the men and women on the tops of the omnibuses saw an irradiation of topaz hues, darkened here and there into ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... from 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 ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... the spider-webs were still glittering with iridescent colours, as if every tiny strand were strung with diamonds, emeralds and amethysts, and the thick green moss that clothed the nut stubbs was one glorious sheen of topaz, sapphire and gold. Down in the valley the mist still hung in thick patches, but the sun's rays were piercing it in many directions, and there was every promise of a hot day, such as would make the shade of ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... little river gambolled down with noisy turbulence into the sea. He might well admire that glen; its steep and rugged sides were veiled with lichens, moss, and wild-flowers, and the sea-birds found safe refuge in its lonely windings, which were coloured with topaz and emerald by the pencillings of nature and ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... great beauty in the mountain of Cairn Gorm, in Scotland. It consists of brown and yellow crystals of quartz, and is much admired for seal stones, &c.; it is sometimes improperly termed topaz. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various

... are truly valued!" asseverates Hirsch always: "Ephraim is my enemy; ask Herr Reklam, chief Jeweller in Berlin, an impartial man!" The meetings are occasionally of stormy character; Voltaire's patience nearly out: "But did n't I return you that Topaz Ring, value 75 pounds? And you have NOT deducted it; you—!" "One day, Picard and he pulled a Ring [doubtless this Topaz] off my finger," says the pathetic Hirsch, "and violently shoved me out of the room, slamming their door,"—and sent me home, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... would prove effectual, that "Similia similibus curantur." Would the fiery influence of a topaz attract much from the realms of a chrysolite? Or, the crystallized, airy forces of a sapphire be a suitable medium for the earthly forces of ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... of mockery passed over Reuben's face, and he proceeded to examine the casket. One by one he trifled with the gems—the rich onyx, the sapphire, the crystal, the coral, the pearl, the ruby, and the topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back again. And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white neck, Israel could scarcely hold back ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... April the General and his wife started homeward, the latter bearing as a parting gift from the women of New Orleans the somewhat gaudy set of topaz jewelry which she wears in her most familiar portrait. The trip was a continuous ovation, and at Nashville a series of festivities wound up with a banquet attended by the most distinguished soldiers and citizens of Tennessee and presided ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... scene was still a brilliant one. The gayly painted coach was now deserted. It stood, a chariot of state, as it were, awaiting royalty; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the sun. The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, that were still bathed in the white of their sweat. The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft mass against the snow of the chef's apron and cap; the two were in deep consultation at the kitchen door. Monsieur Paul ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... semi-precious) gem, jewel, diamond, brilliant, beryl, emerald, chalcedony, bloodstone, agate, heliotrope girasole, onyx, sardonyx, garnet, sardine stone, jade, opal, peridot, chrysolite, sapphire, ruby, topaz, turquoise, turquoise matrix, zircon, hyacinth, carbuncle, amethyst, pearl, coral, bijou, doublet, carnelian, briolette, cabochon, chatoyant, rhinestone, amphibole, aquamarine, tourmaline, rhodolite, spinel, bufonite. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... could be arranged; but the surrounding had by this time become too involved, and this person had no alternative but to smile symmetrically and reply that his words were indeed opals falling from a topaz basin. ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... slippery coals; like eels They slide about. His force all spent, He counts his small accomplishment. A half-a-dozen clinker-coals Which still have fire in their souls. Fire! And in his thought there burns The topaz fire of votive urns. He sees it fling from hill to hill, And still consumed, is burning still. Higher and higher leaps the flame, The smoke an ever-shifting frame. He sees a Spanish Castle old, With silver steps and paths of gold. From myrtle bowers ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... features into bold relief. At her feet sat a beautiful girl, with dark Grecian features, and a full, voluptuous form. She, too, had long, flowing, raven tresses, into which were twisted strings of pearl. From a necklace of topaz hung a little silver crucifix, resting upon a full and heaving bust, to which was fitted a close jacket, made of deep-blue cloth, and fastened together with loops and silver buttons. Her soft and round arms were naked, save at the shoulders, and her ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... done her crude injustice. They made of Soeur Julie an elderly woman in the dress of a nun; somewhat stout, rather large of feature. But the figure which met us in the narrow corridor had dignity and a noble strength. The smile of greeting lit deep eyes whose colour was that of brown topaz, and showed the kindly, humorous curves of a generous mouth. The flaring white headdress of the Order of Saint-Charles of Nancy framed a face so strong that I ceased to wonder how this woman had cowed a German horde; and it thrilled me to think that in this very ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... on the table, beyond all possibility of dispute. All the remaining articles, which were chiefly rings of the less prized stones, such as jasper, granite, topaz, and turquoise, were also identified, answering perfectly to the description furnished by the jeweller, who had sold them to Jacques Colis the night of the fete, when, with Swiss thrift, he had laid in this small stock in trade, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... horse rippled in heavier toil, and his hoofs beat the earth in shorted stride; the way was rising from the plain as it approached the plateau that was like an immense shelf let into the wall of the world above the lowland; a shelf that held jewels, topaz and diamonds, that glinted their red and yellow lights, and upon which rested giant pearls, the moonlight silvering the domes and minarets of white palaces and mosques of Poona. The dark hill upon which rested the Temple of Parvati threw its ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... the Sibylline books in the Capitol. There are, as you see, twelve magnificent stones, inscribed with mystical characters. Counting from the left-hand top corner, the stones are carnelian, peridot, emerald, ruby, lapis lazuli, onyx, sapphire, agate, amethyst, topaz, beryl, and jasper." ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... windows, row on row, Warm sullenly beneath the afterglow, Burn topaz out of dust and dim the flare Of ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... straining eyes he gazed upon that first outlier of the New World which held his all. His cheeks were thin and wasted, and the hectic spot on each glowed crimson in the crimson light of the setting sun. A few minutes more, and the rainbows of the West were gone; emerald and topaz, amethyst and ruby, had faded into silver-gray; and overhead, through the dark sapphire depths, the Moon and Venus ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... devil. Last year he and his hell riders swept down on Topaz and killed two bartenders just to see them kick, Ned Bannister said. Folks ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... person or attire escaped her scrutiny. Marya stroked her with a soft crooning. The fastidious Colina bore it, smiling. At the throat of her waist Colina was wearing a topaz-pin, to which the Indian girl's ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... mineral corundum (q.v.), notable for its hardness and abrasive power (see EMERY), and in well-crystallized forms it constitutes, when coloured by various metallic oxides, the gem-stones, sapphire, oriental topaz, oriental amethyst and oriental emerald. Alumina is obtained as a white amorphous powder by heating aluminium hydroxide. This powder, provided that it has not been too strongly ignited, is soluble in strong acids; by ignition it becomes denser and nearly as hard as corundum; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... gold." In letters or conversation, as well as in his verse, Browning's love of color was always in evidence. "He dazzles us with scarlet, and crimson, and rubies, and the poppy's 'red effrontery,'" said an English critic; "with topaz, amethyst, and the glory of gold, and makes the sonnet ache with the luster of blue." When, in the haunting imagery of memory pictures, after leaving Florence, he reverted to the gardens of Isa Blagden, on ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... sold. A florist booth kept by a dark-faced Greek was neighbor to a shop built with turrets like a castle. Here a happy-faced Italian women exhibited trays of uncut stones, semi-precious ones, explained Mr. Bartlett, and strings of beads, coral, pearl, flat turquoise, topaz, and amethysts. There were bits of old porcelain, crystal cups, and oriental embroideries, and little carved gods on ebony pedestals. The place reminded Suzanna of Drusilla's historic old pawn ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... a broad low brow, and over it the masses of the tendriling tresses—tawny, lustrous topaz, cloudy, METALLIC. Like spun silk of ruddy copper; and misty as the wisps of cloud that Soul'tze, Goddess of Sleep, sets in the skies of dawn to catch the wandering ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... A great many large pieces of amethyst, and some of white topaz and rock crystal; a large number of smaller stones, carbuncles, chrysolites, and not a few emeralds. Dodd looked at them with ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... through which the sun darts, launches into the obscurity its shower of rays and a portion of the nave glows like a luminous glade. A vast rosace behind the choir, a window with tortuous branchings above the entrance, shimmer with the tints of amethyst, ruby, emerald and topaz like leafy labyrinths in which lights from above break in and diffuse themselves in shifting radiance. Near the sacristy a small door-top, fastened against the wall, exposes an infinity of intersecting moldings similar to the delicate meshes of some marvelous twining and climbing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... was a roast chicken, a cut-glass dish of celery and a ruby mound of jelly; a crusty loaf of new bread lay broken at his right; at his left, winking in the sunbeam, stood a decanter half filled with a topaz liquor. He was daintily poising a bit of jelly on some bread, the mouthful was in the air, when his eyes fell on Caroline, an amazed and cobwebbed ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... the Broadwater; the darkness of the woods, blended from this aspect into one, of Mount Music and Coppinger's Court, was softened by its veils; the far hills were transparent, as if the light had fused them to clearest brown, and topaz, and opal glass. The hill side, above and beneath them, glowed and smouldered with the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... thy bulwarks, Thy streets with emeralds blaze, The sardius and the topaz Unite in thee ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... day, the first definitely cold day, and Caramel had on one of those knee-length, sheep-lined coats long worn by the working men of the Middle West, that were just coming into fashionable approval. His soft hat was of a discreet dark brown, and from under it his clear eye flamed like a topaz. He stopped Anthony enthusiastically, slapping him on the arms more from a desire to keep himself warm than from playfulness, and, after his inevitable ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewelry. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw: but at the last it seemed Better to leave Excalibur concealed ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... insisted, for there was no doubt in their minds that the black cat had brought them good fortune. Now they had all the fortune they wanted, to "go on with," and as poor, pretty Mrs. May seemed "a bit down on her luck," they would leave her Timmy to bring it back again. And really the topaz-eyed creature, in its becoming jade collar—a gift from Nick Hilliard—was often a comfort to Angela, curled up in her lap and purring cosily under her book as she read. It seemed curiously fond of her, even fonder than of Kate, and had "taken to" ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... gone down in the green sea of far-off pine tops, but the western sky glowed like some vast altar of topaz, whereon zodiacal fires had kindled the rays of vivid rose, that sprang into the zenith and cooled their flush in the pale blue of the upper air. Under the elms, swift southern twilight was already filling the arches with purple gloom, and when the heavy iron gate closed with a sullen clang behind ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... blaze of a jewel-case. She saw at first only dull shanks of metal tumbled one upon the other. But, after a moment's peering, between them she caught gleams of veritable light. Her fingers went in to retrieve a hoop of heavy silver, in the midst of which was sunk a flawed topaz. She admired a moment the play of light over ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... foot of ground, was made of crystal. Nearby hills were visions of loveliness where the colors of a million rainbows quivered and flashed. Veins of metal showed the rich blues and greens of peacock coloring. Others were scarlet, topaz, green, and all of them took the strange sunlight that flooded them and threw it back ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... twisted bands of platinum and gold, forming a knot to hold a cabuchon sapphire. His was a thin setting for seven stones, set in a straight row; diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... sublime effect. Sometimes the whole of its broad disk appeared at the end of an avenue, spreading one dazzling mass of brightness. The foliage of the trees, illuminated from beneath by its saffron beams, glowed with the lustre of the topaz and the emerald. Their brown and mossy trunks appeared transformed into columns of antique bronze; and the birds, which had retired in silence to their leafy shades to pass the night, surprised to see the radiance of a second morning, hailed ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... remember how my happiness was enhanced by every little bird that burst out into sudden song among the trees, and then as suddenly became silent, or by every bright-scaled fish that went darting through the topaz-coloured depths of the water, or rose for a moment over its calm surface—how the blue sheets of hyacinths that carpeted the openings in the wood delighted me, and every golden-tinted cloud that gleamed over the setting sun, and threw its bright flush on the river, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... golden wine, Songs of a silver brook, And fragrant breaths of eglantine, Are mingled in thy look. More fair they are than any star, Thy topaz eyes divine— And deep within their trysting-nook Thy spirit blends ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... scant. But will and means, In mortals, for the cause ye well discern, With unlike wings are fledge. A mortal I Experience inequality like this, And therefore give no thanks, but in the heart, For thy paternal greeting. This howe'er I pray thee, living topaz! that ingemm'st This precious jewel, let ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... unseasonably into the Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... and hard when they closed suddenly. He was a man of much influence in the politics of his country. His small-clothes were of dark green cloth with large silver buttons, the lace on his linen was fine and abundant. Dona Martina wore a gown of stiff flowered silk and a profusion of topaz ornaments. As the boys entered and bowed respectfully, Don Tiburcio eyed them keenly, but shook them ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... extremely beautiful, but nature had here far surpassed art; for the stone was an emerald of such good colour, that the man who bought it from me for tens of crowns sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger-ring. I will mention another kind of gem; this was a magnificent topaz; and here art equalled nature; it was as large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty. I remember yet another precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... in Sierra Morena, and empties itself into the Mediterranean, near Huelva, having the name of Tinto given it from the tinge of its waters, which are as yellow as a topaz, hardening the sand and petrifying it in a most surprising manner. If a stone happen to fall in, and rest on another, they both become in a year's time perfectly united and conglutiated. This river withers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various

... planks. There was a dank smell of wet wood and rankly growing water-weeds. A ray of sunshine, piercing the roof of willow leaves, struck the single blossom of a monkey-flower, that sparkled suddenly in the green darkness like a topaz. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... head, And snow-white tail and yellow mane: To seek his peer on earth were vain. The archbishop spurred him in fiery haste, And, on the moment Abime he faced, Came down on the wondrous shield the blow, The shield with amethysts all aglow, Carbuncle and topaz, each priceless stone; 'Twas once the Emir Galafir's own; A demon gave it in Metas vale; But when Turpin smote it might nought avail— From side to side did his weapon trace, And he flung him dead in an open space. Say the Franks, "Such deeds beseem the brave. ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... years after, when Captain Folger, of the American ship 'Topaz,' landed at Pitcairn Island, one of the most remote of the islands in the Pacific, he found there a solitary Englishman and five Otaheitan women and nineteen children. The man, who gave his name as Alexander Smith, said he was the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... marvellous value, as long as two joints of an infant's finger, and as thick as one of the joints of its thumb, sharp on both sides, and of a beautiful octagonal shape.] This pretended adamas juvenis pariensis resisted the action of lime. Petrus Martyr distinguishes it from topaz by adding offenderunt et topazios in littore, [they pay no heed to topazes on the coast] that is of Paria, Saint Marta and Veragua. See Oceanica Dec. 3 ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... little necklace made of pieces of amethyst and topaz and pearl and crystal, strung at intervals on a little golden chain, which her Uncle Tom had given her. She was very fond of it. She looked at it lovingly, when she had taken ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... ochre, uwarowite, chromate of iron, carbonates of the earths, carbonates of the metallic oxides, basic phosphate of yttria, do. of alumina, do. of lime, persulphate of iron, sulphate of alumina, aluminite, alumstone, fluoride of cerium, yttrocerite, topaz, corundum, pleonaste, chondrodite. ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous

... shone with a splendor never yet beheld on earth. Its solid substance was built of jewels the rarest, and stones of priceless value. It seemed like one solid stone, and yet all the colors of the rainbow were contained in it. The ruby, the diamond, the emerald, the carbuncle, the topaz, the amethyst, the sapphire; of them the wall was built up in harmonious combination. So brilliant was it that all the space I floated in was full of the splendor. So mild was it and so translucent, that I could look for miles into ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... leaves,—all homely things, Which hold the people's hearts.—In this fair land Taka was born. Thro' sixteen years of moon And tropic sun she blossomed in the air. Chilled by no frost, the world unconsciously Mirrored her sweetness back to her. The sun Had kissed her skin to a warm topaz; rare As dusky wealth of Autumn, her sweet breast, Gleaming and bare, was hung with ropes of flowers Yellow and white, and in her curling hair Glimmered the pure gardenia. All the braves Wished her for wife, but old Akau the chief, ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... made to it contribution of gladness, and weight of glory is swung to the top of other weight of glory, higher and higher as the centuries go by, higher and higher as the whole millenniums roll, sapphire on the top of jasper, sardonyx on the top of chalcedony, and chrysoprasus above topaz, until, far beneath shall be the walls and towers and domes of the great capitol, a monument forever and forever rising, and yet never done. "Unto Him who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... Daplyn went at seven, and got nothing to eat at all. Whether they had anything to drink, I know not—no, not I; but it's to be hoped so. Also, your uncle Lloyd has stopped smoking, and he doesn't like it much. Also, that your mother is most beautifully gotten up to-day, in a pink gown with a topaz stone in front of it; and is really looking like an angel, only that she isn't like an angel at all—only like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... quality of their voices for success. The subjects of many of the songs handed down by the minstrels were still held in honour by the ballad-singers. The feats of "Elym of the Clough," "Randle of Chester," and "Sir Topaz," which had faded under the kind keeping of the minstrels, were now refreshed and brought more boldly in the new version before the sense. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck had their honours enlarged by the new dynasty; more maidens and heroes were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various

... Hesper's jewel-case, Mary found a fine bracelet of the true, the Oriental topaz, the old chrysolite—of that clear yellow of the sunset-sky that looks like the 'scaped spirit of miser-smothered gold: this she clasped upon one arm; and when she had fastened a pair of some ancient Mortimer's garnet buckles ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... with the gold of love, rich with the purples of passion, aflame with the crimson of thy desire, forgetting not the caress of the rose, nor the light mingling of opal and saffron, and the faint touch of amethyst and topaz, in which shall she ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... beside the king, I should be tender to each little thing With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell Its inward pang; and I would soothe it well With tender touch, and with a low soft moan For company: my dumb love-pang is lone, Prisoned as topaz-beam within ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot

... consummate band, in uniforms of uncut white velvet, with a highly-wrought gold button, just tipped with a single pink topaz, appears to me [Greek phrase]. When we die, 'Band' will be found impressed upon our heart, like 'Frigate' on the core of Nelson. The negroes should have their noses bored, as well as their ears, and hung with rings ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... Prepimpin's topaz eyes gazed full into his new lord's. He wagged the tuft at the end of his shaven tail. Andrew knelt down, planted his fingers in the lion shagginess of mane above his ears and said in ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... seemed to be dissolved in a listlessness that was more than languor. It was only the eye that corrected this impression; an eye of an unusual mingled brilliancy and softness, sombre as coal and with lights that outshone the topaz; an eye of unimpaired health and virility; an eye that bid you beware of the man's devastating anger. A complexion, naturally dark, had been tanned in the island to a hue hardly distinguishable from that of a Tahitian; only his manners and movements, and the living ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... is of pale-yellow, in the manner of a corselet with wide, up-and-down stripes, a stiff ruff and buttons of topaz. There is a narrow frilled stripe on the edge of the collar, and also on the close-fitting sleeves. The trunks are short, wide-slashed, and of a dead-green color with pale purple in the slashes. The ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... Lindsay dropped beside her and they sat for a moment in silence. A cricket chirped noisily a few inches from them. Hilda put out her hand in that direction and it ceased. Sounds wandered across from the encircling city, evening sounds, softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, topaz ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... and my own direction, but have not received so much as a message to tell me she is sorry she was not at home. Perhaps this is her first vision of Paris, and it is natural for a Frenchwoman to have her head turned with it; though what she takes for rivers of emerald, and hotels of ruby and topaz, are to my eyes, that have been purged with euphrasy and rue, a filthy stream, in which every thing is washed without being cleaned, and dirty houses, ugly streets, worse shops, and churches loaded with bad pictures.(949) Such is the material part of this paradise; for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... voice resembled the noise of arrows passing through the upper branches of a prickly forest. His long and pointed nails indicated the high and dignified nature of all his occupations; each nail was protected by a solid sheath, there being amethyst, ruby, topaz, ivory, emerald, white jade, iron, ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... there were ear-rings and bracelets of lapis lazuli of a beautiful azure color; string after string of pearls; emeralds set in buckles for her shoes; amethysts; sapphires as blue as the sea; and last of all a large topaz, which shone with a brilliant yellow light, as if it had been sunshine which some one had caught and ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... pearls and gems of the Blessed Virgin, the limpid jewels, the blue sapphires and rose rubies of her antiphons; then the aquamarine, so lucid and pure, of the 'Ave Maris Stella,' the topaz, pale as tears, of the 'O Quot nudis Lacrymarum' on the Feast of the Seven Dolours, the hyacinth, colour of dried blood, of the 'Stabat;' then were told the feasts of the Angels and the Saints, the hymns dedicated to the Apostles and the Evangelists, to the Martyrs, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... The meats were built up in fantastic form: castles, gigantic stags, boars, horses, etc. After the fourth service, the cardinal offered his holiness a milk-white steed worth 400 florins; two gold rings, jeweled with an enormous sapphire and a no less enormous topaz; and a bowl, worth 100 florins; sixteen cardinal guests and twenty prelates were given rings and jewels, and twelve young clerks of the papal house and twenty-four sergeants-at-arms ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... manner the prince of all the earth: Of whom Tyrus mentioned by Ezekiel, was a very lively type, "Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious-stone, [that is, doctrine,] was thy covering; as the sardius, topaz, diamond," &c., "till iniquity was found in thee" (Eze 28:13-18); till thou leftest thy station, and place appointed of God, and then thou wast cast as profane out of the mountain of God, yea, though a covering cherub. See it again in Cain, who while he continued in the church, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan



Words linked to "Topaz" :   quartz, mineral, common topaz, tan, light brown, transparent gem, false topaz



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