Jewelry Stones Quotes

A JEWELRY STORE NAMED INDIA If you hold this Dazzling emerald Up to the sky, It will shine a billion Beautiful miracles Painted from the tears Of the Most High. Plucked from the lush gardens Of a yellowish-green paradise, Look inside this hypnotic gem And a kaleidoscope of Titillating, Soul-raising Sights and colors Will tease and seduce Your eyes and mind. Tell me, sir. Have you ever heard A peacock sing? Hold your ear To this mystical stone And you will hear Sacred hymns flowing To the vibrations Of the perfumed Wind.

We should go back inside," she said, in a half whisper. She did not want to go back inside. She wanted to stay here, with Will achingly close, almost leaning into her. She could feel the heat that radiated from his body. His dark hair fell around the mask, into his eyes, tangling with his long eyelashes. "We have only a little time-" She took a step forward-and stumbled into Will, who caught her. She froze-and then her arms crept around him, her fingers lacing themselves behind his neck. Her face was pressed against his throat, his soft hair under her fingers. She closed her eyes, shutting out the dizzying world, the light beyond the French windows, the glow of the sky. She wanted to be here with Will, cocooned in this moment, inhaling the clean sharp scent of him., feeling the beat of his heart against hers, as steady and strong as the pulse of the ocean. She felt him inhale. "Tess," he said. "Tess, look at me." She raised her eyes to his, slow and unwilling, braced for anger or coldness-but his gaze was fixed on hers, his dark blue eyes somber beneath their thick black lashes, and they were stripped of all their usual cool, aloof distance. They were as clear as glass and full of desire. And more than desire-a tenderness she had never seen in them before, had never even associated with Will Herondale. That, more than anything else, stopped her protest as he raised his hands and methodically began to take the pins from her hair, one by one. This is madness, she thought, as the first pin rattled to the ground. They should be running, fleeing this place. Instead she stood, wordless, as Will cast Jessamine's pearl clasps aside as if they were so much paste jewelry. Her own long, curling dark hair fell down around her shoulders, and Will slid his hands into it. She heard him exhale as he did so, as if he had been holding his breath for months and had only just let it out. She stood as if mesmerized as he gathered her hair in his hands, draping it over one of her shoulders, winding her curls between his fingers. "My Tessa," he said, and this time she did not tell him that she was not his. "Will," she whispered as he reached up and unlocked her hands from around his neck. He drew her gloves off, and they joined her mask and Jessie's pins on the stone floor of the balcony. He pulled off his own mask next and cast it aside, running his hands through his damp black hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The lower edge of the mask had left marks across his high cheekbones, like light scars, but when she reached to touch them, he gently caught at her hands and pressed them down. "No," he said. "Let me touch you first. I have wanted...

The ring is a copy of my mother’s. I took the stone from her engagement ring and had a jeweler place it in a titanium setting.” “Titanium?” I asked. “Dick knew a guy." “Of course he did.” “You’re a bit rough and tumble with jewelry, and I knew it would have to be able to stand up to…” “Nuclear winter?” His eyebrow lifted. “I never know with you.

Diamonds aren’t forever. Diamond engagement rings have only been a “necessary luxury” for about eighty years. We take the tradition of a diamond engagement ring for granted, as if it were as old as marriage itself. It’s not. In fact, it’s only about as old as the microwave oven.

I am a diamond in the rut. A diamond to an untrained eye looks like a rock stone. So men will kick it around on the ground. It takes a man with an expert eye for fine Jewelry to notice its worth. Do not feel bad when men treat you like the little boys in Africa who gave away stones in exchange for candy. The hungry boys thought they were getting something better but had exchange wealth for a sugar high. Some men will do that. Exchange a valuable woman for the transient high of another. The boys didn't know better and so do some of these men. They don't know your worth.

Real, it turns out, is just as flexible a concept as value.

Usually she looked all bright and sunshiny, but the dark stones captured something else in her, the shadows flitting across her face and along the curve of her collarbone.

Gemstones are, in fact, just colorful gravel. They’re just rocks that we’ve given special names. True jewels are things that are beautiful and scarce. We want them because few others can possess them. We want them even more if they are from some very faraway, exotic place. Their value is, and always has been, 90 percent imaginary.

Amadora was never far from her understanding of women, glamour, or the fine line between elegant and camp, vulgar and vibrant, life and dreams. ... Color, she believed, was feminine. She said that women were masters of color, evidenced in changing their hair color, using eye shadow, mascara, powder, rouge, lipstick. You could see it in their jewelry- silvers and golds, gems, stones, pearls of every hue. It was in their clothing, from what they slept in to what they danced in. Their shoes. Their purses. Ribbons, barrettes, clips, and tiaras. Veils. All this color to enhance their sex appeal, while men, she felt, were ill-equipped to handle color with the same ease.

when Mary died a few years after their wedding, Philip wasn’t exactly broken up about it. He was so unfazed, in fact, that he immediately proposed to her much younger sister. (In terms of taste, that’s nearly on par with beheading your wife, then marrying her illiterate, nymphomaniacal teenage cousin. Keeping it classy, Tudors.)

It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had a nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one—a modest, private affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot when I arrive—as follows: Radishes. Baked apples, with cream Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs. American coffee, with real cream. American butter. Fried chicken, Southern style. Porter-house steak. Saratoga potatoes. Broiled chicken, American style. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Hot wheat-bread, Southern style. Hot buckwheat cakes. American toast. Clear maple syrup. Virginia bacon, broiled. Blue points, on the half shell. Cherry-stone clams. San Francisco mussels, steamed. Oyster soup. Clam Soup. Philadelphia Terapin soup. Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style. Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad. Baltimore perch. Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas. Lake trout, from Tahoe. Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans. Black bass from the Mississippi. American roast beef. Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style. Cranberry sauce. Celery. Roast wild turkey. Woodcock. Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. Prairie liens, from Illinois. Missouri partridges, broiled. 'Possum. Coon. Boston bacon and beans. Bacon and greens, Southern style. Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips. Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. Lettuce. Succotash. String beans. Mashed potatoes. Catsup. Boiled potatoes, in their skins. New potatoes, minus the skins. Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot. Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes. Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper. Green corn, on the ear. Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style. Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. Hot egg-bread, Southern style. Hot light-bread, Southern style. Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk. Apple dumplings, with real cream. Apple pie. Apple fritters. Apple puffs, Southern style. Peach cobbler, Southern style Peach pie. American mince pie. Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. All sorts of American pastry. Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which are not to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way. Ice-water—not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and capable refrigerator.

The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsemé with pearls. Henry II. wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.

The geisha and the temple maiden of the Hindus, Persians, Mayas, or Inca present the sovereignty of idle beauty, completely withdrawn from the world of work. Living in idleness, she preserves those soft and fluid forms of the voice, of the smile, of the whole body, that captivate without resisting what they touch. Her beauty does not triumph in the endurance of stern physical tasks; it does not endure; it is as ephemeral as the flowers that bloom in the night and die when the sun rises. She makes herself an object by covering herself with brilliant and fluid garments, jewels, and perfumes. The working man is stopped in his tracks, contemplating a body set apart, remote from his laborious concerns, ostentatious and alluring. Her sumptuous dress, jewelry of precious stones, plumes of exotic birds, and perfumes made of fields of rare flowers represent values, represent the dissipation of human labor in useless splendor. This intense consumption exerts a dangerous fascination. She tempts the worker to the follies and excesses of passion and dispossession.

But there is a time that descends upon the world when you least expect it, something like the mouth of a wolf which breathes over forests and sometimes upon the head of a person of some importance, blowing out their dreams, erasing the paths which, until then, promised a sure future - and Mușa had left the house exactly during such a time. It was summer, and from behind the butcher’s the unsettling smell of crushed meat and bones was rising.  She skirted the mound which still stands high even today in the middle of the slum and proceeded on to the market.  And what a sight unfolded before her! The sky was sighing sleepily, and from under it one could hear the jingling of beads that evoked an earlier time. Mușa took lazy steps, dragging her slippers, enjoying the feeling of stepping over tiny stones that she could feel through new soles, listening to the vulgar happiness of glass and the cossetted whispers of round pearls. She rummaged through the bracelets and rings, she perused the amber jewelry, and in the end she stopped in front of a shop selling dessert accessories: silver teaspoons, coffee cups and crystal glasses, jam plates made of fragrant wood and particularly low tables, painstakingly inlaid or painted with women half-hidden in veils. Everything lost its allure however after glimpsed the the merchant selling them, a dark-skinned man, in whose eyes smoldered desires without hope – perfidious shoots, like sprigs of hemlock.  Without taking his eyes off her, the merchant offered her a silver ibric, and in its reflections, bleached by the summer sun, swam the tiny fish of temptation. (Homeric)

I had long wanted to see “true” indigo, and thought that drugs might be the way to do this. So one sunny Saturday in 1964, I developed a pharmacologic launchpad consisting of a base of amphetamine (for general arousal), LSD (for hallucinogenic intensity), and a touch of cannabis (for a little added delirium). About twenty minutes after taking this, I faced a white wall and exclaimed, “I want to see indigo now—now!” And then, as if thrown by a giant paintbrush, there appeared a huge, trembling, pear-shaped blob of the purest indigo. Luminous, numinous, it filled me with rapture: It was the color of heaven, the color, I thought, which Giotto had spent a lifetime trying to get but never achieved—never achieved, perhaps, because the color of heaven is not to be seen on earth. But it had existed once, I thought—it was the color of the Paleozoic sea, the color the ocean used to be. I leaned toward it in a sort of ecstasy. And then it suddenly disappeared, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness that it had been snatched away. But I consoled myself: Yes, indigo exists, and it can be conjured up in the brain. For months afterward, I searched for indigo. I turned over little stones and rocks near my house, looking for it. I examined specimens of azurite in the natural history museum—but even they were infinitely far from the color I had seen. And then, in 1965, when I had moved to New York, I went to a concert in the Egyptology gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the first half, a Monteverdi piece was performed, and I was utterly transported. I had taken no drugs, but I felt a glorious river of music, four hundred years long, flowing from Monteverdi’s mind into my own. In this ecstatic mood, I wandered out during the intermission and looked at the ancient Egyptian objects on display—lapis lazuli amulets, jewelry, and so forth—and I was enchanted to see glints of indigo. I thought: Thank God, it really exists! During the second half of the concert, I got a bit bored and restless, but I consoled myself, knowing that I could go out and take a “sip” of indigo afterward. It would be there, waiting for me. But when I went out to look at the gallery after the concert was finished, I could see only blue and purple and mauve and puce—no indigo. That was nearly fifty years ago, and I have never seen indigo again.

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

Kode’s older sister, Kira, was leaning over a display of jewelry, fisting a jade-green necklace in one hand. Her nose was two inches from the Braetic across the table, the two exchanging intimidating glares. Eena watched for a few seconds as Kira all but crawled over a pile of merchandise, her face scrunched up with resentment, yet enviably stunning as always. “Hey Kode,” the young queen whispered. “Hey, girl.” “What’s going on?” “Kira’s bartering.” Eena watched the fistful of necklace come within a whisker of smacking the merchant’s nose. “She isn’t going to hurt the guy, is she?” Kode snorted on a chuckle. “Not if the dude’s got any sense.” Validly concerned, Eena inched closer to the confrontation, straining to hear their growled dialogue. Kode and Niki crept closer too. Efren, however, stayed where he was, testing the flagpole’s ability to support his body weight. They watched the feisty Mishmorat hold up a small pouch and shake it in front of the Braetic’s eyes. Kira’s fingers curled like claws around the purse. She seemed to smirk for a second when the merchant flinched. In a blink he was back in her face again, shoving aside the purse. “What is she trying to trade?” Eena asked, her voice still hushed as though she might disturb the haggling taking place across the way. “Viidun coins,” Kode said. “Ef gave ‘em to her.” “Are they worth much?’ Kode grinned wryly, “He sure as hell don’t freakin’ think so.” Eena foresaw Niki’s disapproving smack to the back of Kode’s head before he even finished his sentence. He cursed at his girlfriend for the physical abuse, an unwise response that earned him an additional thump on the head. “Freakin’ tyrant,” Kode grumbled. “Vulgar grogfish,” Niki retorted. Still unable to hear well enough to satisfy her curiosity, Eena stole in closer to the scene of heated bartering. She stopped when Kira’s strong voice carried over the murmur of the crowd. Kode and his girlfriend were right on her heels. “This purse is worth ten of those gaudy necklaces. You oughta be payin’ me to take ‘em off your hands, Braetic!” “That alien money is worthless to me, Mishmorat. In all my life I’ve never left Moccobatran soil. And even if I were to take an interstellar trip someday, you’d never catch the likes of me on a barbarian planet like Rapador!” Kira jerked her head, causing her black, cascading hair to ripple over her shoulder. The action made the trader flinch again. His eyes tapered, appearing to fume over what he perceived as intentional bullying. “You ain’t gonna sell this crap to no one else,” the exotic Mishmorat said. “Be smart and take the money. Hell, you could make a dozen pieces of jewelry from these coins. Sell ’em all for ten times the worth of anything you got here.” The Braetic shoved his finger at Kira’s chest, breathing down her throat at the same time. “Why don’t you just take your pretty little backside away from my table and make your own Viidun jewelry. Sell it yourself and then come back with a reasonable offer for my necklace.” His palm opened flat, demanding she hand over the jade stones still in her fist. “You wanna make me?” Kira breathed. “What do you plan to do, steal it?” The merchant challenged her in a gesture, nostrils flaring. “I’m no thief, but I’m not above beating some sense into you ‘til you choose to barter like a respectable Braetic!” Caught up in the intense interaction, Kode supported his sister a little too loudly. “Teach the freakin’ crook a lesson, Sis!” Niki smacked her boyfriend upside the head without missing a beat.

is a sure source of silver, a place where gold is refined. 2Iron is taken from the earth; rock is smelted into copper. 3Humansx put an end to darkness, dig for ore to the farthest depths, into stone in utter darkness, 4open a shaft away from any inhabitant, places forgotten by those on foot, apart from any human they hang and sway. 5Earth--from it comes food-- is turned over below ground as by fire.y 6Its rocks are the source for lapis lazuli; there is gold dust in it. 7A path-- no bird of prey knows it; a hawk's eye hasn't seen it; 8proud beasts haven't trodden on it; a lion hasn't crossed over it. 9Humans thrust their hands into flint, pull up mountains from their roots, 10cut channels into rocks; their eyes see everything precious. 11They dam up the sources of rivers; hidden things come to light. Wisdom's value 12But wisdom, where can it be found; where is the place of understanding? 13Humankind doesn't know its value; it isn't found in the land of the living. 14The Deepz says, "It's not with me"; the Seaa says, "Not alongside me!" 15It can't be bought with gold; its price can't be measured in silver, 16can't be weighed against gold from Ophir, with precious onyx or lapis lazuli. 17Neither gold nor glass can compare with it; she can't be acquired with gold jewelry. 18Coral and jasper shouldn't be mentioned; the price of wisdom is more than rubies. 19Cushite topaz won't compare with her; she can't be set alongside pure gold. 20But wisdom, where does she come from? Where is the place of understanding? 21She's hidden from the eyes of all the living, concealed from birds of the sky. 22Destructionb and Death have said, "We've heard a report of her." 23God understands her way; he knows her place; 24for he looks to the ends of the earth and surveys everything beneath the heavens. 25In order to weigh the wind, to prepare a measure for waters, 26when he made a decree for the rain, a path for thunderbolts, 27then he observed it, spoke of it, established it, searched it out, 28and said to humankind: "Look, the fear of the LORD is wisdom; turning from evil is understanding.

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Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill. —NICKY OPPENHEIMER, CHAIRMAN OF DE BEERS     Advertising

Reality, like value, is determined by mob mentality, and just being deemed genuine—or fake—was enough to make it so.

You must take this. I hadn't wanted to seem forward and press it upon you without knowing you truly wished to help me. Can you sell it? And I'll bring the rest of my personal jewelry along to provide for us on the way. This is only one of the smaller pieces." The gold chain and setting flowed into Sheridan's palm. He glanced down at it, turned it over once and managed not to break into ecstatic smiles. He closed his fingers over the stone. "Princess," he said softly, taking her hand and pressing it against his fist, as if he could not bring himself to let her part with the jewel. "Are you quite sure?" She bit her lip, hesitating, and for one awful moment he thought he had gone too far. Then she looked up and nodded. He lifted her hand to his lips. "You are a brave and gallant lady.

He called me a very clever girl and gave me a pat on the head. Then he sternly forbade me from doing so and explained that being too clever would be a quick way into federal prison.

So, what do you do when you’ve invested heavily in an endeavor and then begin to realize that you may have backed the wrong horse? Simple. What did Rhodes and Oppenheimer of De Beers do after they cornered the market on diamonds, then realized they’d found so many that the stones were practically worthless? Lie. You lie and you try to make that lie real by making everyone else believe it. It’s called PR. Whether the story is about the alleged scarcity of diamonds or the boundless treasures of the New World, it’s all about good old-fashioned spin.

If you are caught alone on the street, you will be beaten and sent home. You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten. Cosmetics are forbidden. Jewelry is forbidden. You will not wear charming clothes. You will not speak unless spoken to. You will not make eye contact with men. You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten. You will not paint your nails. If you do, you will lose a finger. Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed immediately. Women are forbidden from working. If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned to death. Listen. Listen well. Obey. Allah-u-akbar. Rasheed

Little stones or shiny sweet wrappers were left in the garden or dropped near my feet. Paper clips and bobby pins, pieces of jewelry or rubbish, sometimes shells or rocks or bits of plastic. I kept each in a box that year by year had to grow bigger. Even when I forgot to feed the birds they brought me gifts. They were mine, and I theirs, and we loved each other. So it went for four years, every day without fail. Until I left not only my mother but my twelve kindred spirits, too. Sometimes I dream of them waiting in that tree for a girl who would never come, bringing gift after precious gift to lie unloved in the grass.

Whatever persons and subjects never become incredible and unique before a tedious and arduous process of life-struggles since as gold becomes jewelry after smelting in the fire and similarly stone through tools as a statue.

they “suffered worst from the combination of institutionalized incompetence and authoritarian rigidity.

Marisol looked me over. “Now for your outfit.” I tugged my black tee and tan shorts. “I’m already wearing an outfit.” “No,” Marisol said with a slow head shake. “There’s a big difference between wearing clothes and wearing an outfit.” She pointed at my closet. “Get that denim shirt I made you buy and layer it on top, opened, sleeves rolled. Your tee has a little rip.” I glanced down. Grimaced. “Then the necklace with the dangling blue stone that’s hanging in your jewelry caddy, by your black jacket. And swap the flip-flops for sandals. The black ones with silver buckles.” “How in the—” “After all this time, you’re actually questioning it?” I conceded with a hand flip and moved toward the closet Marisol freakishly knew by heart.

A drawer under the counter held inventions that didn’t work or were partially finished.  One of the items in the drawer was a small magnetically charged gyroscope she called her perpetual machine. It didn’t work. She didn’t know how she could make it work.  On paper it should work, but Lyria hadn’t discovered the right formula yet. Perhaps she could mount the green stone on the top and call it ‘industrial’ jewelry.

But the Roman finger rings of antiquity were something new. While the symbolism of a circle is obvious, a tiny finger shackle was entirely Roman. And just like us, they wore their wedding rings on the fourth finger of the left hand. In fact, that’s the origin of our modern tradition. They believed there was a special vein, the vena amoris, or “vein of love,” that led from that particular finger directly to the heart. Brilliant, guys. One expects better science from the people who invented concrete and indoor plumbing. Someone

Diamonds are not only brittle, but they’re also quite thermodynamically unstable. Right now, as you read this, every diamond you’ve ever seen is slowly converting to graphite. The process is just so incredibly slow at room temperature that human beings will never live to see it. So . .

Her whole body was racing with heat, and she felt about two touches away from spontaneous combustion. She was seized by a fleeting impulse to run away; at the same time, she wished he would touch her forever. The costume, the posing, the mysterious alcohol that was dissolving her inhibitions. Cass felt wild and alive, even more so than she had the night they went to the brothels. That night she had been someone else, but tonight she was posing as herself, and she loved it. Falco stepped back to consider his work. “Almost perfect.” “Almost?” Cass pretended to pout. “I know.” Falco rooted around in the armoire and returned with something folded inside his hand. He held it up for Cass to see--a necklace made of shining amethyst. It reminded her of something, but she wasn’t sure what. Probably one of Mada’s thousand necklaces. That girl had more jewelry than the Doge’s entire family. Cass shivered as Falco clasped the necklace around her throat. The stones felt like ice against her neck. “All right. How about a demure look? A stretch for you, I know.” Cass widened her eyes and pursed her lips, just slightly. She tilted her head to the left. Falco shook his head. “You look like you’ve swallowed a bee. Forget shy. Let’s try something that comes a little more naturally. How about disdain?” Her eyebrows instantly went up. “I am not disdainful!” “Perfect.” He downed the rest of his muddy liquor. His brush began to flow across the canvas. Cass felt a charge of excitement, but tried her best not to smile. As she held her position, Falco painted in frantic bursts, pausing occasionally to move the lamps or adjust ringlets of her damp hair. Each time he stopped, she would beg to see the progress and he would shake his head and tell her she had to wait.

For humans, scarcity creates value. Value creates wealth. And both scarcity and wealth can be a good thing or a bad thing: a poison or a medicine. Too much money is as dangerous as too little, and can build or destroy economies.