“It now seemed to her that the whole world was ringed with gold. She went in to dinner. Wedding rings abounded. She went to church. Wedding rings were everywhere. She drove out. Gold, or pinchbeck, thin, thick, plain, smooth, they glowed dully on every hand. Rings filled the jewellers’ shops, not the flashing pastes and diamonds of Orlando’s recollections, but simple bands without a stone in them.”

—Virginia Wolfe, from Orlando, 1928.