Hope Diamond Ownership and Subsequent Family Misfortunes
On January 28, 1911, in a deal made in the offices of The Washington Post, McLean purchased the Hope Diamond for US$180,000 from Pierre Cartier of Cartier Jewelers on Fifth Avenue in New York City. A clause in the sale agreement for the diamond, which was widely believed to have brought death and disaster to its owners, stated that "Should any fatality occur to the family of Edward B. McLean within six months, the said Hope diamond is agreed to be exchanged for jewelry of equal vale". By March, the diamond had not been paid for in accordance with the terms in the sale agreement. Cartier hired a lawyer to sue McLean for payment. McLean responded by saying that the diamond was on loan for inspection. On February 2, 1912 The New York Times reported, "Wealthy Purchasers of Famous Stone to Retain It Despite Sinister Reputation."
Read more about this topic: Edward Beale McLean
Famous quotes containing the words hope, diamond, ownership, subsequent, family and/or misfortunes:
“Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth’s sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things—amass sacrifice, at truth’s altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact.”
—Marvin Cohen, U.S. author and humorist. Fables at Life’s Expense, “Where Does Truth Lie,” Latitudes Press (1975)
“A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“... the outcome of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court shows how misguided, narrow notions of racial solidarity that suppress dissent and critique can lead black folks to support individuals who will not protect their rights.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“The son will run away from the family not at eighteen but at twelve, emancipated by his gluttonous precocity; he will fly not to seek heroic adventures, not to deliver a beautiful prisoner from a tower, not to immortalize a garret with sublime thoughts, but to found a business, to enrich himself and to compete with his infamous papa.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67)
“Blessings never come in pairs, and misfortunes never come singly.”
—Chinese proverb.