lusterful but beautiful, tender and comprehensive of all the colours of the rainbow. What gem can answer so to the Talmudic identification of the qualities of Venus, viz., Splendour? The Venus of Libra is more ethereal than the Venus of Taurus and is well presented in the charming statue of the Venus of Medici, that of Taurus being expressed in the figure known as the Venus of Milo. This ethereal Venus is the immaculate glorious woman whose absolute beauty the greatest poets, writers, painters, sculptors and musicians have striven to express in words, in form, in colour and in sound. Thus is Venus the noble cogency of divine pure love which has been striving through all the ages to make the world a paradise and to bring man back again to the Eden he has lost. No blood sacrifices stained the altars of this lovely goddess, and the ancients delighted in bringing to her temples sweet blossoms and fragrant spices for incense. So great was the charm and wonder of this Heavenly One that Momus, the god of Sarcasm, who spared neither god nor man, died of vexation because he could find in her nothing to ridicule, nothing to blame, nothing to jeer at, for before such pure beauty criticism and ridicule must be mute. As Venus Urania she arises amidst the foam of the sea (the occult import serving but to intensify the beauty of the legend) with a blue sky above her head and peaceful sunlit waters at her feet, a symbol of that eternal love which unites the elements and spreads the lustre of true harmony wherever are to be found those wise enough to know it. Socrates wrote that he was uncertain whether there was one Aphrodite or two, and doubtless the philosopher recognized the various phases of the goddess when blended with, or corrupted by, anything less than the conception of pure idealism in all its expressions. The ancients called the opal “Cupid”—a worthy tribute to the sublime beauty of his glorious mother. One might compare the opal to the union of Thaumas (Wonder), the Son of the Earth, with Electra (Brightness), a daughter of Oceanus, and with their child Iris (Rainbow). [Illustration: Rare Opals Kelsey I. Newman Collection ]