I especially like moonstones, amethyst, and malachite. I have a few pieces of jewelry with moonstones and amethyst, but the malachite is different. I just like the look of it. I carry a small piece in my pocket and keep some larger ones on my desk. I like to imagine it has magical properties even though I don’t believe in any magic.
When I was in Springdale, Utah, visiting a rock shop near Zion National Park, I saw an assortment of spoiled carvings at cheap prices, pieces of malachite and other semiprecious stones that had somehow been ruined while being shaped. They looked very sad to me, all those beautiful stones being forced into some design that failed and ended up making them worthless. They would have been lovely just polished, instead of being made into little broken dogs and bears and crosses.
@canidmajor, I thought the same thing as @chyna. Although I’d never heard the term, it sounded creepily but plausibly Victorian to me.