{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4701/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4701","id":"gutenberg_4701","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4701","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Conduct of life","Crystallography"],"text":"THE ETHICS OF THE DUST\n\nTEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES\n\nON THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION\n\nBY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,\n\nHONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART\n\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION.\n\n\nTO THE REAL LITTLE HOUSEWIVES, WHOSE GENTLE LISTENING AND\nTHOUGHTFUL QUESTIONING ENABLED THE WRITER TO WRITE THIS BOOK, IT\nIS DEDICATED WITH HIS LOVE.\n\nCHRISTMAS, 1875.\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nLECTURE\n\n   I. THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS\n  II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS\n III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE\n  IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS\n   V. CRYSTAL VIRTUES\n  VI. CRYSTAL QUARRELS\n VII. HOME VIRTUES\nVIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE\n  IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS\n   X. THE CRYSTAL REST\n      NOTES\n\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAE\n\n\nOLD LECTURER (of incalculable age).\n\nFLORRIE,\n   on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9.\n\nISABEL ..................................... \"  11.\n\nMAY ........................................ \"  11.\n\nLILY ....................................... \"  12.\n\nKATHLEEN.................................... \"  14.\n\nLUCILLA..................................... \"  15.\n\nVIOLET ..................................... \"  16.\n\nDORA (who has the keys and is housekeeper)... \" 17.\n\nEGYPT (so called from her dark eyes) ....... \"  17.\n\nJESSIE (who somehow always makes the room\nlook brighter when she is in it) ........... \"  18.\n\nMARY (of whom everybody, including the Old\nLecturer, is in great awe) ................. \"  20.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\nI have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best\npains given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my\npublisher, after the opinion of the public had been taken on the\n\"Ethics of the Dust,\" that I would \"write no more in dialogue!\"\nHowever, I bowed to public judgment in this matter at once\n(knowing also my inventive powers to be of the feeblest); but in\nreprinting the book (at the prevailing request of my kind friend,\nMr. Henry Willett), I would pray the readers whom it may at first\noffend by its disconnected method, to examine, nevertheless, with\ncare, the passages in which the principal speaker sums the\nconclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were written as\nintroductions, for young people, to all that I have said on the\nsame matters in my larger books; and, on re-reading them, they\nsatisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally\nuseful, than anything else I have done of the kind.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\nThe summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, \"You may\nat least earnestly believe,\" at p. 215, is thus the clearest\nexposition I have ever yet given of the general conditions under\nwhich the Personal Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of\nmatter; and the analysis of heathen conceptions of Deity,\nbeginning at p. 217, and closing at p. 229, not only prefaces, but\nvery nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms I have\nsince asserted, or pleaded for, in \"Aratra Pentelici,\" and the\n\"Queen of the Air.\"\n\nAnd thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting\nnew occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it\nworth reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted \"Unto this\nLast,\"--page for page; that the students of my more advanced works\nmay be able to refer to these as the original documents of them;\nof which the most essential in this book are these following.\n\nI. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of\nthe Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle-gospel, p. 59, \"that a\nnation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues,\"\nexplains the main motive of all my books on Political Economy.\n\nII. The examination of the connection between stupidity and crime,\npp. 87-96, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors\nClavigera against the commonly alleged excuse for public\nwickedness,--\"They don't mean it--they don't know any better.\"\n\nIII. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 145-149, is\na summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my\ninaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals;\ncompare in that lecture, sections 83-85, with the sentence in p.\n147 of this book, \"Nothing is ever done so as really to please our\nFather, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no\nFather to know of it.\"\n\nThis sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the\ngeneral conditions of action in the children of God, in\nconsequence of which it is foretold of them by Christ that they\nwill say at the Judgment, \"When saw we thee?\" It does not refer to\nthe distinct cases in which virtue consists in faith given to\ncommand, appearing to foolish human judgment inconsistent with the\nMoral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to those in which any\ndirectly-given command requires nothing more of virtue than\nobedience.\n\nIV. The subsequent pages, 149-158, were written especially to\ncheck the dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable\nyoung women, in the direction of narrow and selfish religious\nsentiment: and they contain, therefore, nearly everything which I\nbelieve it necessary that young people should be made to observe,\nrespecting the errors of monastic life. But they in nowise enter\non the reverse, or favorable side: of which indeed I did not, and\nas yet do not, feel myself able to speak with any decisiveness;\nthe evidence on that side, as stated in the text, having \"never\nyet been dispassionately examined.\"\n\nV. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 96, is, to my own\nfancy, the best bit of conversation in the book; and the issue of\nit, at p. 103, the most practically and immediately useful. For on\nthe idea of the inevitable weakness and corruption of human\nnature, has logically followed, in our daily life, the horrible\ncreed of modern \"Social science,\" that all social action must be\nscientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on the habit of\nmeasuring and reverencing our powers and talents that we may\nkindly use them, will be founded a true Social science,\ndeveloping, by the employment of them, all the real powers and\nhonorable feelings of the race.\n\nVI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures,\nof the real nature and marvelousness of the laws of\ncrystallization, is necessary to the understanding of what farther\nteaching of the beauty of inorganic form I may be able to give,\neither in \"Deucalion,\" or in my \"Elements of Drawing.\" I wish\nhowever that the second lecture had been made the beginning of the\nbook; and would fain now cancel the first altogether, which I\nperceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant for a\nmetaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the\nkingdom of Mammon, or of worldly wealth; its waters mixed with\nblood, its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous\nwhen gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within\nfrozen walls of cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and\nineffective throughout; and I retain this chapter only because I\nam resolved to leave no room for any one to say that I have\nwithdrawn, as erroneous in principle, so much as a single sentence\nof any of my books written since 1860.\n\nOne license taken in this book, however, though often permitted to\nessay-writers for the relief of their dullness, I never mean to\ntake more,--the relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream,\npp. 27 and 171. I assumed, it is true, that in these places the\nsupposed dream would be easily seen to be an invention; but must\nnot any more, even under so transparent disguise, pretend to any\nshare in the real powers of Vision possessed by great poets and\ntrue painters.\n\nBRANTWOOD:\n\n10th October, 1877.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe following lectures were really given, in substance, at a\ngirls' school (far in the country); which, in the course of\nvarious experiments on the possibility of introducing some better\npractice of drawing into the modern scheme of female education, I\nvisited frequently enough to enable the children to regard me as a\nfriend. The Lectures always fell more or less into the form of\nfragmentary answers to questions; and they are allowed to retain\nthat form, as, on the whole, likely to be more interesting than\nthe symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many children (for the\nschool was large) took part, at different times, in the\nconversations; but I have endeavored, without confusedly\nmultiplying the number of imaginary speakers, to represent, as far\nas I could, the general tone of comment and inquiry among young\npeople.\n\n[Footnote: I do not mean, in saying \"imaginary,\" that I have not\npermitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate\ndiscourtesy of some reminiscence of personal character; for which\nI must hope to be forgiven by my old pupils and their friends, as\nI could not otherwise have written the book at all. But only two\nsentences in all the dialogues, and the anecdote of \"Dotty,\" are\nliterally \"historical.\"]\n\nIt will be at once seen that these Lectures were not intended for\nan introduction to mineralogy. Their purpose was merely to awaken\nin the minds of young girls, who were ready to work earnestly and\nsystematically, a vital interest in the subject of their study. No\nscience can be learned in play; but it is often possible, in play,\nto bring good fruit out of past labor, or show sufficient reasons\nfor the labor of the future.\n\nThe narrowness of this aim does not, indeed, justify the absence\nof all reference to many important principles of structure, and\nmany of the most interesting orders of minerals; but I felt it\nimpossible to go far into detail without illustrations; and if\nreaders find this book useful, I may, perhaps, endeavor to\nsupplement it by illustrated notes of the more interesting\nphenomena in separate groups of familiar minerals;--flints of the\nchalk;--agates of the basalts;--and the fantastic and exquisitely\nbeautiful varieties of the vein-ores of the two commonest metals,\nlead and iron. But I have always found that the less we speak of\nour intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them;\nand this poor little book will sufficiently have done its work,\nfor the present, if it engages any of its young readers in study\nwhich may enable them to despise it for its shortcomings.\n\nDENMARK HILL: Christmas, 1865.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 1.\n\nTHE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS\n\n\nA very idle talk, by the dining-room fire, after raisin-and-almond\ntime.\n\nOLD LECTURER; FLORRIE, ISABEL, MAY, LILY, and SIBYL.\n\nOLD LECTURER (L.). Come here, Isabel, and tell me what the make-\nbelieve was, this afternoon.\n\nISABEL (arranging herself very primly on the foot-stool). Such a\ndreadful one! Florrie and I were lost in the Valley of Diamonds.\n\nL. What! Sindbad's, which nobody could get out of? ISABEL. Yes;\nbut Florrie and I got out of it.\n\nL. So I see. At least, I see you did; but are you sure Florrie\ndid?\n\nISABEL. Quite sure.\n\nFLORRIE (putting her head round from behind L.'s sofa-cushion).\nQuite sure. (Disappears again.)\n\nL. I think I could be made to feel surer about it.\n\n(FLORRIE reappears, gives L. a kiss, and again exit.)\n\nL. I suppose it's all right; but how did you manage it?\n\nISABEL. Well, you know, the eagle that took up Sindbad was very\nlarge--very, very large--the largest of all the eagles.\n\nL. How large were the others?\n\nISABEL. I don't quite know--they were so far off. But this one\nwas, oh, so big! and it had great wings, as wide as--twice over\nthe ceiling. So, when it was picking up Sindbad, Florrie and I\nthought it wouldn't know if we got on its back too: so I got up\nfirst, and then I pulled up Florrie, and we put our arms round its\nneck, and away it flew.\n\nL. But why did you want to get out of the valley? and why haven't\nyou brought me some diamonds?\n\nISABEL. It was because of the serpents. I couldn't pick up even\nthe least little bit of a diamond, I was so frightened.\n\nL. You should not have minded the serpents.\n\nISABEL. Oh, but suppose that they had minded me?\n\nL. We all of us mind you a little too much, Isabel, I'm afraid.\n\nISABEL. No--no--no, indeed.\n\nL. I tell you what, Isabel--I don't believe either Sindbad, or\nFlorrie, or you, ever were in the Valley of Diamonds.\n\nISABEL. You naughty! when I tell you we were!\n\nL. Because you say you were frightened at the serpents.\n\nISABEL. And wouldn't you have been?\n\nL. Not at those serpents. Nobody who really goes into the valley\nis ever frightened at them--they are so beautiful.\n\nISABEL (suddenly serious). But there's no real Valley of Diamonds,\nis there?\n\nL. Yes, Isabel; very real indeed.\n\nFLORRIE (reappearing). Oh, where? Tell me about it.\n\nL. I cannot tell you a great deal about it; only I know it is very\ndifferent from Sindbad's. In his valley, there was only a diamond\nlying here and there; but, in the real valley, there are diamonds\ncovering the grass in showers every morning, instead of dew: and\nthere are clusters of trees, which look like lilac trees; but, in\nspring, all their blossoms are of amethyst.\n\nFLORRIE. But there can't be any serpents there, then?\n\nL. Why not?\n\nFLORRIE. Because they don't come into such beautiful places.\n\nL. I never said it was a beautiful place.\n\nFLORRIE. What! not with diamonds strewed about it like dew?\n\nL. That's according to your fancy, Florrie. For myself, I like dew\nbetter.\n\nISABEL. Oh, but the dew won't stay; it all dries!\n\nL. Yes; and it would be much nicer if the diamonds dried too, for\nthe people in the valley have to sweep them off the grass, in\nheaps, whenever they want to walk on it; and then the heaps\nglitter so, they hurt one's eyes.\n\nFLORRIE. Now you're just playing, you know.\n\nL. So are you, you know.\n\nFLORRIE. Yes, but you mustn't play.\n\nL. That's very hard, Florrie; why mustn't I, if you may?\n\nFLORRIE. Oh, I may, because I'm little, but you mustn't, because\nyou're--(hesitates for a delicate expression of magnitude).\n\nL. (rudely taking the first that comes). Because I'm big? No;\nthat's not the way of it at all, Florrie. Because you're little,\nyou should have very little play; and because I'm big I should\nhave a great deal.\n\nISABEL and FLORRIE (both). No--no--no--no. That isn't it at all.\n(ISABEL sola, quoting Miss Ingelow.) \"The lambs play always--they\nknow no better.\" (Putting her head very much on one side.) Ah, now\n--please--please--tell us true; we want to know.\n\nL. But why do you want me to tell you true, any more than the man\nwho wrote the \"Arabian Nights\"?\n\nISABEL. Because--because we like to know about real things; and\nyou can tell us, and we can't ask the man who wrote the stories.\n\nL. What do you call real things?\n\nISABEL. Now, you know! Things that really are.\n\nL. Whether you can see them or not?\n\nISABEL. Yes, if somebody else saw them.\n\nL. But if nobody has ever seen them?\n\nISABEL. (evading the point). Well, but, you know, if there were a\nreal Valley of Diamonds, somebody MUST have seen it.\n\nL. You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel. Many people go to real\nplaces, and never see them; and many people pass through this\nvalley, and never see it.\n\nFLORRIE. What stupid people they must be!\n\nL. No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the people who do see it.\n\nMAY. I think I know where it is.\n\nISABEL. Tell us more about it, and then we'll guess.\n\nL. Well. There's a great broad road, by a river-side, leading up\ninto it.\n\nMAY (gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last word). Does the\nroad really go UP?\n\nL. You think it should go down into a valley? No, it goes up; this\nis a valley among the hills, and it is as high as the clouds, and\nis often full of them; so that even the people who most want to\nsee it, cannot, always.\n\nISABEL. And what is the river beside the road like?\n\nL. It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows over diamond\nsand--only the water is thick and red.\n\nISABEL. Red water?\n\nL. It isn't all water.\n\nMAY. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just now; I want to hear\nabout the valley.\n\nL. So the entrance to it is very wide, under a steep rock; only\nsuch numbers of people are always trying to get in, that they keep\njostling each other, and manage it but slowly. Some weak ones are\npushed back, and never get in at all; and make great moaning as\nthey go away: but perhaps they are none the worse in the end.\n\nMAY. And when one gets in, what is it like?\n\nL. It is up and down, broken kind of ground: the road stops\ndirectly; and there are great dark rocks, covered all over with\nwild gourds and wild vines; the gourds, if you cut them, are red,\nwith black seeds, like water-melons, and look ever so nice; and\nthe people of the place make a red pottage of them: but you must\ntake care not to eat any if you ever want to leave the valley\n(though I believe putting plenty of meal in it makes it\nwholesome). Then the wild vines have clusters of the color of\namber; and the people of the country say they are the grape of\nEshcol; and sweeter than honey: but, indeed, if anybody else\ntastes them, they are like gall. Then there are thickets of\nbramble, so thorny that they would be cut away directly, anywhere\nelse; but here they are covered with little cinque-foiled blossoms\nof pure silver; and, for berries, they have clusters of rubies.\nDark rubies, which you only see are red after gathering them. But\nyou may fancy what blackberry parties the children have! Only they\nget their frocks and hands sadly torn.\n\nLILY. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as blackberries do?\n\nL. No; but I'll tell you what spots them--the mulberries. There\nare great forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silk-\nworms, some munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at\nwork; and some spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever\nsaw; and, wherever they fall, they stain a deep red; and nothing\never washes it out again. And it is their juice, soaking through\nthe grass, which makes the river so red, because all its springs\nare in this wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as if\nin pain, like old olive branches; and their leaves are dark. And\nit is in these forests that the serpents are; but nobody is afraid\nof them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are wreathed\nabout the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly; and they are\nsinging serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds\nare in ours.\n\nFLORRIE. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now.\n\nL. You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, if you were there.\nThe serpents would not bite you; the only fear would be of your\nturning into one!\n\nFLORRIE. Oh, dear, but that's worse.\n\nL. You wouldn't think so if you really were turned into one,\nFlorrie; you would be very proud of your crest. And as long as you\nwere yourself (not that you could get there if you remained quite\nthe little Florrie you are now), you would like to hear the\nserpents sing. They hiss a little through it, like the cicadas in\nItaly; but they keep good time, and sing delightful melodies; and\nmost of them have seven heads, with throats which each take a note\nof the octave; so that they can sing chords--it is very fine\nindeed. And the fireflies fly round the edge of the forests all\nthe night long; you wade in fireflies, they make the fields look\nlike a lake trembling with reflection of stars; but you must take\ncare not to touch them, for they are not like Italian fireflies,\nbut burn, like real sparks.\n\nFLORRIE. I don't like it at all; I'll never go there.\n\nL. I hope not, Florrie; or at least that you will get out again if\nyou do. And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these\nserpent forests there are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a\nlabyrinth, winding always higher and higher, till the gold is all\nsplit asunder by wedges of ice; and glaciers, welded, half of ice\nseven times frozen, and half of gold seven times frozen, hang down\nfrom them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters,\nlike the Cretan arrowheads; and into a mixed dust of snow and\ngold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able to\nlift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a\nburial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of\ngolden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one,\nand are buried there:--yet, over the drifted graves, those who are\nspared climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path;--for\nat the end of it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his\nthrone: and beside him (but it is only a false vision), spectra of\ncreatures like themselves, sit on thrones, from which they seem to\nlook down on all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.\nAnd on the canopy of his throne there is an inscription in fiery\nletters, which they strive to read, but cannot; for it is written\nin words which are like the words of all languages, and yet are of\nnone. Men say it is more like their own tongue to the English than\nit is to any other nation; but the only record of it is by an\nItalian, who heard the king himself cry it as a war cry, \"Pape\nSatan, Pape Satan Aleppe.\" [Footnote: Dante, Inf. 7, I.]\n\nSIBYL. But do they all perish there? You said there was a way\nthrough the valley, and out of it.\n\nL. Yes; but few find it. If any of them keep to the grass paths,\nwhere the diamonds are swept aside; and hold their hands over\ntheir eyes so as not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward\ngradually to a place where one sees a little opening in the golden\nrocks. You were at Chamouni last year, Sibyl; did your guide\nchance to show you the pierced rock of the Aiguille du Midi?\n\nSIBYL. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva on Monday night; and\nit rained all Tuesday; and we had to be back at Geneva again,\nearly on Wednesday morning.\n\nL. Of course. That is the way to see a country in a Sibylline\nmanner, by inner consciousness: but you might have seen the\npierced rock in your drive up, or down, if the clouds broke: not\nthat there is much to see in it; one of the crags of the aiguille-\nedge, on the southern slope of it, is struck sharply through, as\nby an awl, into a little eyelet hole; which you may see, seven\nthousand feet above the valley (as the clouds flit past behind it,\nor leave the sky), first white, and then dark blue. Well, there's\njust such an eyelet hole in one of the upper crags of the Diamond\nValley; and, from a distance, you think that it is no bigger than\nthe eye of a needle. But if you get up to it, they say you may\ndrive a loaded camel through it, and that there are fine things on\nthe other side, but I have never spoken with anybody who had been\nthrough.\n\nSIBYL. I think we understand it now. We will try to write it down,\nand think of it.\n\nL. Meantime, Florrie, though all that I have been telling you is\nvery true, yet you must not think the sort of diamonds that people\nwear in rings and necklaces are found lying about on the grass.\nWould you like to see how they really are found?\n\nFLORRIE. Oh, yes--yes.\n\nL. Isabel--or Lily--run up to my room and fetch me the little box\nwith a glass lid, out of the top drawer of the chest of drawers.\n(Race between LILY and ISABEL.)\n\n(Re-enter ISABEL with the box, very much out of breath. LILY\nbehind.)\n\nL. Why, you never can beat Lily in a race on the stairs, can you,\nIsabel?\n\nISABEL (panting). Lily--beat me--ever so far--but she gave me--the\nbox--to carry in.\n\nL. Take off the lid, then; gently.\n\nFLORRIE (after peeping in, disappointed). There's only a great\nugly brown stone!\n\nL. Not much more than that, certainly, Florrie, if people were\nwise. But look, it is not a single stone; but a knot of pebbles\nfastened together by gravel: and in the gravel, or compressed\nsand, if you look close, you will see grains of gold glittering\neverywhere, all through; and then, do you see these two white\nbeads, which shine, as if they had been covered with grease?\n\nFLORRIE. May I touch them?\n\nL. Yes; you will find they are not greasy, only very smooth. Well,\nthose are the fatal jewels; native here in their dust with gold,\nso that you may see, cradled here together, the two great enemies\nof mankind,--the strongest of all malignant physical powers that\nhave tormented our race.\n\nSIBYL. Is that really so? I know they do great harm; but do they\nnot also do great good?\n\nL. My dear child, what good? Was any woman, do you suppose, ever\nthe better for possessing diamonds? but how many have been made\nbase, frivolous, and miserable by desiring them? Was ever man the\nbetter for having coffers full of gold? But who shall measure the\nguilt that is incurred to fill them? Look into the history of any\ncivilized nations; analyze, with reference to this one cause of\ncrime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their nobles, priests,\nmerchants, and men of luxurious life. Every other temptation is at\nlast concentrated into this: pride, and lust, and envy, and anger\nall give up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole world\nis essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve their\nChrist; but they sell Him.\n\nSIBYL. But surely that is the fault of human nature? it is not\ncaused by the accident, as it were, of there being a pretty metal,\nlike gold, to be found by digging. If people could not find that,\nwould they not find something else, and quarrel for it instead?\n\nL. No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a\ntime, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions,\nthe national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not\nnatural to man--generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by\na special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma; and the\nessential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness\nis, that it shall be a beautiful thing which can be retained\nwithout a use. The moment we can use our possessions to any good\npurpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating that use to\nothers rises side by side with our power. If you can read a book\nrightly, you will want others to hear it; if you can enjoy a\npicture rightly, you will want others to see it: learn how to\nmanage a horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to make\nyour subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, or sailors; you will\nnever be able to see the fine instrument you are master of,\nabused; but, once fix your desire on anything useless, and all the\npurest pride and folly in your heart will mix with the desire, and\nmake you at last wholly inhuman, a mere ugly lump of stomach and\nsuckers, like a cuttle-fish.\n\nSIBYL. But surely, these two beautiful things, gold and diamonds,\nmust have been appointed to some good purpose?\n\nL. Quite conceivably so, my dear: as also earthquakes and\npestilences; but of such ultimate purposes we can have no sight.\nThe practical, immediate office of the earthquake and pestilence\nis to slay us, like moths; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live\nout of their way. So, the practical, immediate office of gold and\ndiamonds is the multiplied destruction of souls (in whatever sense\nyou have been taught to understand that phrase); and the paralysis\nof wholesome human effort and thought on the face of God's earth:\nand a wise nation will live out of the way of them. The money\nwhich the English habitually spend in cutting diamonds would, in\nten years, if it were applied to cutting rocks instead, leave no\ndangerous reef nor difficult harbor round the whole island coast.\nGreat Britain would be a diamond worth cutting, indeed, a true\npiece of regalia. (Leaves this to their thoughts for a little\nwhile.) Then, also, we poor mineralogists might sometimes have the\nchance of seeing a fine crystal of diamond unhacked by the\njeweler.\n\nSIBYL. Would it be more beautiful uncut?\n\nL. No; but of infinite interest. We might even come to know\nsomething about the making of diamonds.\n\nSIBYL. I thought the chemists could make them already?\n\nL. In very small black crystals, yes; but no one knows how they\nare formed where they are found; or if indeed they are formed\nthere at all. These, in my hand, look as if they had been swept\ndown with the gravel and gold; only we can trace the gravel and\ngold to their native rocks, but not the diamonds. Read the account\ngiven of the diamond in any good work on mineralogy;--you will\nfind nothing but lists of localities of gravel, or conglomerate\nrock (which is only an old indurated gravel). Some say it was once\na vegetable gum; but it may have been charred wood; but what one\nwould like to know is, mainly, why charcoal should make itself\ninto diamonds in India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale.\n\nSIBYL. Are they wholly the same, then?\n\nL. There is a little iron mixed with our black lead; but nothing\nto hinder its crystallization. Your pencils in fact are all\npointed with formless diamond, though they would be H H H pencils\nto purpose, if it crystallized.\n\nSIBYL. But what IS crystallization?\n\nL. A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, and it has been\ntea-time these two hours. What thoughtless things girls are!\n\nSYBIL. Yes, we are; but we want to know, for all that.\n\nL. My dear, it would take a week to tell you.\n\nSIBYL. Well, take it, and tell us.\n\nL. But nobody knows anything about it.\n\nSIBYL. Then tell us something that nobody knows.\n\nL. Get along with you, and tell Dora to make tea.\n\n(The house rises; but of course the LECTURER wanted to be forced\nto lecture again, and was.)\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 2.\n\nTHE PYRAMID BUILDERS\n\n\nIn the large Schoolroom, to which everybody has been summoned by\nringing of the great bell.\n\nL. So you have all actually come to hear about crystallization! I\ncannot conceive why unless the little ones think that the\ndiscussion may involve some reference to sugar-candy.\n\n(Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of\ncouncil. ISABEL frowns severely at L., and shakes her head\nviolently.)\n\nMy dear children, if you knew it, you are yourselves, at this\nmoment, as you sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eye of a\nmineralogist, but a lovely group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by\natomic forces. And even admitting you to be something more, you\nhave certainly been crystallizing without knowing it. Did not I\nhear a great hurrying and whispering ten minutes ago, when you\nwere late in from the playground; and thought you would not all be\nquietly seated by the time I was ready:--besides some discussion\nabout places--something about \"it's not being fair that the little\nones should always be nearest?\" Well, you were then all being\ncrystallized. When you ran in from the garden, and against one\nanother in the passages, you were in what mineralogists would call\na state of solution, and gradual confluence; when you got seated\nin those orderly rows, each in her proper place, you became\ncrystalline. That is just what the atoms of a mineral do, if they\ncan, whenever they get disordered: they get into order again as\nsoon as may be.\n\nI hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, \"But we know\nour places; how do the atoms know theirs? And sometimes we dispute\nabout our places; do the atoms--(and, besides, we don't like being\ncompared to atoms at all)--never dispute about theirs?\" Two wise\nquestions these, if you had a mind to put them! it was long before\nI asked them myself, of myself. And I will not call you atoms any\nmore. May I call you--let me see--\"primary molecules?\" (General\ndissent indicated in subdued but decisive murmurs.) No! not even,\nin familiar Saxon, \"dust\"?\n\n(Pause, with expression on faces of sorrowful doubt; LILY gives\nvoice to the general sentiment in a timid \"Please don't.\")\n\nNo, children, I won't call you that; and mind, as you grow up,\nthat you do not get into an idle and wicked habit of calling\nyourselves that. You are something better than dust, and have\nother duties to do than ever dust can do; and the bonds of\naffection you will enter into are better than merely \"getting in\nto order.\" But see to it, on the other hand, that you always\nbehave at least as well as \"dust;\" remember, it is only on\ncompulsion, and while it has no free permission to do as it likes,\nthat IT ever gets out of order; but sometimes, with some of us,\nthe compulsion has to be the other way--hasn't it? (Remonstratory\nwhispers, expressive of opinion that the LECTURER is becoming too\npersonal.) I'm not looking at anybody in particular--indeed I am\nnot. Nay, if you blush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking?\nWe'll go back to the atoms.\n\n\"How do they know their places?\" you asked, or should have asked.\nYes, and they have to do much more than know them: they have to\nfind their way to them, and that quietly and at once, without\nrunning against each other.\n\nWe may, indeed, state it briefly thus:--Suppose you have to build\na castle, with towers and roofs and buttresses, out of bricks of a\ngiven shape, and that these bricks are all lying in a huge heap at\nthe bottom, in utter confusion, upset out of carts at random. You\nwould have to draw a great many plans, and count all your bricks,\nand be sure you had enough for this and that tower, before you\nbegan, and then you would have to lay your foundation, and add\nlayer by layer, in order, slowly.\n\nBut how would you be astonished, in these melancholy days, when\nchildren don't read children's books, nor believe any more in\nfairies, if suddenly a real benevolent fairy, in a bright brick-\nred gown, were to rise in the midst of the red bricks, and to tap\nthe heap of them with her wand, and say, \"Bricks, bricks, to your\nplaces!\" and then you saw in an instant the whole heap rise in the\nair, like a swarm of red bees, and--you have been used to see bees\nmake a honeycomb, and to think that strange enough, but now you\nwould see the honeycomb make itself!--You want to ask something,\nFlorrie, by the look of your eyes.\n\nFLORRIE. Are they turned into real bees, with stings?\n\nL. No, Florrie; you are only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw\nthe slates flying from the roof the other day in the storm; only\nthose slates didn't seem to know where they were going, and,\nbesides, were going where they had no business: but my spell-bound\nbricks, though they have no wings, and what is worse, no heads and\nno eyes, yet find their way in the air just where they should\nsettle, into towers and roofs, each flying to his place and\nfastening there at the right moment, so that every other one shall\nfit to him in his turn.\n\nLILY. But who are the fairies, then, who build the crystals?\n\nL. There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds much more than\ncrystals; but she builds these also. I dreamed that I saw her\nbuilding a pyramid, the other day, as she used to do, for the\nPharaohs.\n\nISABEL. But that was only a dream?\n\nL. Some dreams are truer than some wakings, Isabel; but I won't\ntell it you unless you like.\n\nISABEL. Oh, please, please.\n\nL. You are all such wise children, there's no talking to you; you\nwon't believe anything.\n\nLILY. No, we are not wise, and we will believe anything, when you\nsay we ought.\n\nL. Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you recollect that\nevening when we had been looking at your old cave by Cumae, and\nwondering why you didn't live there still: and then we wondered\nhow old you were; and Egypt said you wouldn't tell, and nobody\nelse could tell but she; and you laughed--I thought very gayly for\na Sibyl--and said you would harness a flock of cranes for us, and\nwe might fly over to Egypt if we liked, and see.\n\nSIBYL. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out after all!\n\nL. Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubling that third pyramid\nof hers; [Footnote: Note i.] and making a new entrance into it;\nand a fine entrance it was! First, we had to go through an ante-\nroom, which had both its doors blocked up with stones; and then we\nhad three granite portcullises to pull up, one after another; and\nthe moment we had got under them, Egypt signed to somebody above;\nand down they came again behind us, with a roar like thunder, only\nlouder; then we got into a passage fit for nobody but rats, and\nEgypt wouldn't go any further herself, but said we might go on if\nwe liked; and so we came to a hole in the pavement, and then to a\ngranite trap-door--and then we thought we had gone quite far\nenough, and came back, and Egypt laughed at us.\n\nEGYPT. You would not have had me take my crown off, and stoop all\nthe way down a passage fit only for rats?\n\nL. It was not the crown, Egypt--you know that very well. It was\nthe flounces that would not let you go any further. I suppose,\nhowever, you wear them as typical of the inundation of the Nile,\nso it is all right.\n\nISABEL. Why didn't you take me with you? Where rats can go, mice\ncan. I wouldn't have come back.\n\nL. No, mousie; you would have gone on by yourself, and you might\nhave waked one of Pasht's cats,[Footnote: Note iii] and it would\nhave eaten you. I was very glad you were not there. But after all\nthis, I suppose the imagination of the heavy granite blocks and\nthe underground ways had troubled me, and dreams are often shaped\nin a strange opposition to the impressions that have caused them;\nand from all that we had been reading in Bunsen about stones that\ncouldn't be lifted with levers, I began to dream about stones that\nlifted themselves with wings.\n\nSIBYL. Now you must just tell us all about it.\n\nL. I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose\nclay the bricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis.\n[Footnote: Note ii] They had just been all finished, and were\nlying by the lake margin, in long ridges, like waves. It was near\nevening; and as I looked towards the sunset, I saw a thing like a\ndark pillar standing where the rock of the desert stoops to the\nNile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, and wondered\nat it; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like the\nform of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided,\nlike a pillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance\npast it, towards the sun; and saw a silver cloud, which was of all\nthe clouds closest to the sun (and in one place crossed it), draw\nitself back from the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot\ntowards the dark pillar; leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of\na bow. And I thought it was lightning; but when it came near the\nshadowy pillar, it sank slowly down beside it, and changed into\nthe shape of a woman, very beautiful, and with a strength of deep\ncalm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feet with a white\nrobe; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which I had seen\nacross the sun; but all the golden ripples of it had become\nplumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of\na vulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a\nweaver's shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it,\nand in her left hand, arrows, tipped with fire.\n\nISABEL (clapping her hands). Oh! it was Neith, it was Neith! I\nknow now.\n\nL. Yes; it was Neith herself; and as the two great spirits came\nnearer to me, I saw they were the Brother and Sister--the pillared\nshadow was the Greater Pthah.[Footnote: Note iii] And I heard them\nspeak, and the sound of their words was like a distant singing. I\ncould not understand the words one by one; yet their sense came to\nme; and so I knew that Neith had come down to see her brother's\nwork, and the work that he had put into the mind of the king to\nmake his servants do. And she was displeased at it; because she\nsaw only pieces of dark clay; and no porphyry, nor marble, nor any\nfair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon.\nAnd she blamed her brother, and said, \"Oh, Lord of truth! is this\nthen thy will, that men should mold only foursquare pieces of\nclay: and the forms of the gods no more?\" Then the Lord of truth\nsighed, and said, \"Oh! sister, in truth they do not love us; why\nshould they set up our images? Let them do what they may, and not\nlie--let them make their clay foursquare; and labor; and perish.\"\n\nThen Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, \"Oh, Lord\nof truth! why should they love us? their love is vain; or fear us?\nfor their fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew\nwe lived forever.\"\n\nBut the Lord of truth answered, \"They know, and yet they know not.\nLet them keep silence; for their silence only is truth.\"\n\nBut Neith answered, \"Brother, wilt thou also make league with\nDeath, because Death is true? Oh! thou potter, who hast cast these\nhuman things from thy wheel, many to dishonor, and few to honor;\nwilt thou not let them so much as see my face; but slay them in\nslavery?\"\n\nBut Pthah only answered, \"Let them build, sister, let them build.\"\n\nAnd Neith answered, \"What shall they build, if I build not with\nthem?\"\n\nAnd Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw\nsuddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of\nvaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers,\ngreater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind\nblew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the\nmoving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever\nNeith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced.\n\n\"Oh, Brother!\" she said at last, \"what is this vanity? If I, who\nam Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst\nthou mock them, who art Lord of truth?\" But Pthah answered, \"They\nthought to bind me; and they shall be bound. They shall labor in\nthe fire for vanity.\"\n\nAnd Neith said, looking at the sand, \"Brother, there is no true\nlabor here--there is only weary life and wasteful death.\"\n\nAnd Pthah answered, \"Is it not truer labor, sister, than thy\nsculpture of dreams?\" Then Neith smiled; and stopped suddenly.\n\nShe looked to the sun; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the\ndesert. Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that\nlay, each with its blue shadow, by the lake shore.\n\n\"Brother,\" she said, \"how long will this pyramid of thine be in\nbuilding?\"\n\n\"Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before\nthe summit is laid.\"\n\n\"Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy children to labor,\"\nanswered Neith. \"Look! I must follow Phre beyond Atlas; shall I\nbuild your pyramid for you before he goes down?\" And Pthah\nanswered, \"Yea, sister, if thou canst put thy winged shoulders to\nsuch work.\" And Neith drew herself to her height; and I heard a\nclashing pass through the plumes of her wings, and the asp stood\nup on her helmet, and fire gathered in her eyes. And she took one\nof the flaming arrows out of the sheaf in her left hand, and\nstretched it out over the heaps of clay. And they rose up like\nflights of locusts, and spread themselves in the air, so that it\ngrew dark in a moment. Then Neith designed them places with her\narrow point; and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid level\nat morning. Then Neith pointed with her arrow to the north, and to\nthe south, and to the east, and to the west, and the flying motes\nof earth drew asunder into four great ranked crowds; and stood,\none in the north, and one in the south, and one in the east, and\none in the west--one against another. Then Neith spread her wings\nwide for an instant, and closed them with a sound like the sound\nof a rushing sea; and waved her hand towards the foundation of the\npyramid, where it was laid on the brow of the desert. And the four\nflocks drew together and sank down, like sea-birds settling to a\nlevel rock, and when they met, there was a sudden flame, as broad\nas the pyramid, and as high as the clouds; and it dazzled me; and\nI closed my eyes for an instant; and when I looked again, the\npyramid stood on its rock, perfect; and purple with the light from\nthe edge of the sinking sun.\n\nTHE YOUNGER CHILDREN (variously pleased). I'm so glad! How nice!\nBut what did Pthah say?\n\nL. Neith did not wait to hear what he would say. When I turned\nback to look at her, she was gone; and I only saw the level white\ncloud form itself again, close to the arch of the sun as it sank.\nAnd as the last edge of the sun disappeared, the form of Pthah\nfaded into a mighty shadow, and so passed away.\n\nEGYPT. And was Neith's pyramid left?\n\nL. Yes; but you could not think, Egypt, what a strange feeling of\nutter loneliness came over me when the presence of the two gods\npassed away. It seemed as if I had never known what it was to be\nalone before; and the unbroken line of the desert was terrible.\n\nEGYPT. I used to feel that, when I was queen: sometimes I had to\ncarve gods, for company, all over my palace. I would fain have\nseen real ones, if I could.\n\nL. But listen a moment yet, for that was not quite all my dream.\nThe twilight drew swiftly to the dark, and I could hardly see the\ngreat pyramid; when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the air;\nand a horned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on the sand at my\nfeet, with a blow like the beat of a hammer. Then it stood up on\nits hind claws, and waved its pincers at me: and its fore claws\nbecame strong arms, and hands; one grasping real iron pincers, and\nthe other a huge hammer; and it had a helmet on its head, without\nany eyelet holes, that I could see. And its two hind claws became\nstrong crooked legs, with feet bent inwards. And so there stood by\nme a dwarf, in glossy black armor, ribbed and embossed like a\nbeetle's back, leaning on his hammer. And I could not speak for\nwonder; but he spoke with a murmur like the dying away of a beat\nupon a bell. He said, \"I will make Neith's great pyramid small. I\nam the lower Pthah; and have power over fire. I can wither the\nstrong things, and strengthen the weak; and everything that is\ngreat I can make small, and everything that is little I can make\ngreat.\" Then he turned to the angle of the pyramid and limped\ntowards it. And the pyramid grew deep purple; and then red like\nblood, and then pale rose-color, like fire. And I saw that it\nglowed with fire from within. And the lower Pthah touched it with\nthe hand that held the pincers; and it sank down like the sand in\nan hour-glass,--then drew itself together, and sank, still, and\nbecame nothing, it seemed to me; but the armed dwarf stooped down,\nand took it into his hand, and brought it to me, saying,\n\"Everything that is great I can make like this pyramid; and give\ninto men's hands to destroy.\" And I saw that he had a little\npyramid in his hand, with as many courses in it as the large one;\nand built like that,--only so small. And because it glowed still,\nI was afraid to touch it; but Pthah said, \"Touch it--for I have\nbound the fire within it, so that it cannot burn.\" So I touched\nit, and took it into my own hand; and it was cold; only red, like\na ruby. And Pthah laughed, and became like a beetle again, and\nburied himself in the sand, fiercely; throwing it back over his\nshoulders. And it seemed to me as if he would draw me down with\nhim into the sand; and I started back, and woke, holding the\nlittle pyramid so fast in my hand that it hurt me.\n\nEGYPT. Holding WHAT in your hand?\n\nL. The little pyramid.\n\nEGYPT. Neith's pyramid?\n\nL. Neith's, I believe; though not built for Asychis. I know only\nthat it is a little rosy transparent pyramid, built of more\ncourses of bricks than I can count, it being made so small. You\ndon't believe me, of course, Egyptian infidel; but there it is.\n(Giving crystal of rose Fluor.)\n\n(Confused examination by crowded audience, over each other's\nshoulders and under each other's arms. Disappointment begins to\nmanifest itself.)\n\nSIBYL. (not quite knowing why she and others are disappointed).\nBut you showed us this the other day!\n\nL. Yes; but you would not look at it the other day.\n\nSIBYL. But was all that fine dream only about this?\n\nL. What finer thing could a dream be about than this? It is small,\nif you will; but when you begin to think of things rightly, the\nideas of smallness and largeness pass away. The making of this\npyramid was in reality just as wonderful as the dream I have been\ntelling you, and just as incomprehensible. It was not, I suppose,\nas swift, but quite as grand things are done as swiftly. When\nNeith makes crystals of snow, it needs a great deal more\nmarshaling of the atoms, by her flaming arrows, than it does to\nmake crystals like this one; and that is done in a moment.\n\nEGYPT. But how you DO puzzle us! Why do you say Neith does it? You\ndon't mean that she is a real spirit, do you?\n\nL. What _I_ mean, is of little consequence. What the Egyptians\nmeant, who called her \"Neith,\"--or Homer, who called her\n\"Athena,\"--or Solomon, who called her by a word which the Greeks\nrender as \"Sophia,\" you must judge for yourselves. But her\ntestimony is always the same, and all nations have received it: \"I\nwas by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His\ndelight; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my\ndelights were with the sons of men.\"\n\nMARY. But is not that only a personification?\n\nL. If it be, what will you gain by unpersonifying it, or what\nright have you to do so? Cannot you accept the image given you, in\nits life; and listen, like children, to the words which chiefly\nbelong to you as children: \"I love them that love me, and those\nthat seek me early shall find me\"?\n\n(They are all quiet for a minute or two; questions begin to appear\nin their eyes.)\n\nI cannot talk to you any more to-day. Take that rose-crystal away\nwith you, and think.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 3.\n\nTHE CRYSTAL LIFE\n\n\nA very dull Lecture, willfully brought upon themselves by the\nelder children. Some of the young ones have, however, managed to\nget in by mistake. SCENE, the Schoolroom.\n\nL. So I am to stand up here merely to be asked questions, to-day,\nMiss Mary, am I?\n\nMARY. Yes; and you must answer them plainly; without telling us\nany more stories. You are quite spoiling the children: the poor\nlittle things' heads are turning round like kaleidoscopes: and\nthey don't know in the least what you mean. Nor do we old ones,\neither, for that matter: to-day you must really tell us nothing\nbut facts.\n\nL. I am sworn; but you won't like it, a bit.\n\nMARY. Now, first of all, what do you mean by \"bricks\"?--Are the\nsmallest particles of minerals all of some accurate shape, like\nbricks?\n\nL. I do not know. Miss Mary; I do not even know if anybody knows.\nThe smallest atoms which are visibly and practically put together\nto make large crystals, may better be described as \"limited in\nfixed directions\" than as \"of fixed forms.\" But I can tell you\nnothing clear about ultimate atoms: you will find the idea of\nlittle bricks, or, perhaps, of little spheres, available for all\nthe uses you will have to put it to.\n\nMARY. Well, it's very provoking; one seems always to be stopped\njust when one is coming to the very thing one wants to know.\n\nL. No, Mary, for we should not wish to know anything but what is\neasily and assuredly knowable. There's no end to it. If I could\nshow you, or myself, a group of ultimate atoms, quite clearly, in\nthis magnifying glass, we should both be presently vexed, because\nwe could not break them in two pieces, and see their insides.\n\nMARY. Well then, next, what do you mean by the flying of the\nbricks? What is it the atoms do, that is like flying?\n\nL. When they are dissolved, or uncrystallized, they are really\nseparated from each other, like a swarm of gnats in the air, or\nlike a shoal of fish in the sea;--generally at about equal\ndistances. In currents of solutions, or at different depths of\nthem, one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms than\nanother; but on the whole, you may think of them as equidistant,\nlike the spots in the print of your gown. If they are separated by\nforce of heat only, the substance is said to be melted; if they\nare separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by\nwater, they are said to be \"dissolved.\" Note this distinction\ncarefully, all of you.\n\nDORA. I will be very particular. When next you tell me there isn't\nsugar enough in your tea, I will say, \"It is not yet dissolved,\nsir.\"\n\nL. I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora; and that's the\npresent parliament, if the members get too saucy.\n\n(DORA folds her hands and casts down her eyes.)\n\nL. (proceeds in state). Now, Miss Mary, you know already, I\nbelieve, that nearly everything will melt, under a sufficient\nheat, like wax. Limestone melts (under pressure); sand melts;\ngranite melts; the lava of a volcano is a mixed mass of many kinds\nof rocks, melted: and any melted substance nearly always, if not\nalways, crystallizes as it cools; the more slowly the more\nperfectly. Water melts at what we call the freezing, but might\njust as wisely, though not as conveniently, call the melting,\npoint; and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all\nknown crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and will\ncrystallize, if you let it cool slowly enough, in stars, much like\nsnow. Gold needs more heat to melt it, but crystallizes also\nexquisitely, as I will presently show you. Arsenic and sulphur\ncrystallize from their vapors. Now in any of these cases, either\nof melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies, the particles are\nusually separated from each other, either by heat, or by an\nintermediate substance; and in crystallizing they are both brought\nnearer to each other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as\npossible: the essential part of the business being not the\nbringing together, but the packing. Who packed your trunk for you,\nlast holidays, Isabel?\n\nISABEL. Lily does, always.\n\nL. And how much can you allow for Lily's good packing, in guessing\nwhat will go into the trunk?\n\nISABEL. Oh! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always\ngets everything in.\n\nLILY. Ah! but, Isey, if you only knew what a time it takes! and\nsince you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't\ndo anything with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.\n\nL. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew what a time it\ntakes; and I wish any of us knew what a time crystallization\ntakes, for that is consummately fine packing. The particles of the\nrock are thrown down, just as Isabel brings her things--in a heap;\nand innumerable Lilies, not of the valley, but of the rock, come\nto pack them. But it takes such a time!\n\nHowever, the best--out and out the best--way of understanding the\nthing, is to crystallize yourselves.\n\nTHE AUDIENCE. Ourselves!\n\nL. Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly on the\nschoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground.\nYou can play at crystallization there as much as you please.\n\nKATHLEEN and JESSIE. Oh! how?--how?\n\nL. First, you must put yourselves together, as close as you can,\nin the middle of the grass, and form, for first practice, any\nfigure you like.\n\nJESSIE. Any dancing figure, do you mean?\n\nL. No; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you\nlike, standing close together. You had better outline it first on\nthe turf, with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly\ndrawn; then get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side,\ntill you are all quite in it, and no empty space left.\n\nDORA. Crinoline and all?\n\nL. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline\nsurface, unless you pin it in; and then you may make a polished\ncrystal of yourselves.\n\nLILY. Oh, we'll pin it in--we'll pin it in!\n\nL. Then, when you are all in the figure, let every one note her\nplace, and who is next her on each side; and let the outsiders\ncount how many places they stand from the corners.\n\nKATHLEEN. Yes, yes,--and then?\n\nL. Then you must scatter all over the playground--right over it\nfrom side to side, and end to end; and put yourselves all at equal\ndistances from each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it\nvery accurately, but so as to be nearly equidistant; not less than\nabout three yards apart from each other, on every side.\n\nJESSIE. We can easily cut pieces of string of equal length, to\nhold. And then? L. Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, at\nthe same rate, towards the outlined figure in the middle. You had\nbetter sing as you walk; that will keep you in good time. And as\nyou close in towards it, let each take her place, and the next\ncomers fit themselves in beside the first ones, till you are all\nin the figure again.\n\nKATHLEEN. Oh! how we shall run against each other. What fun it\nwill be!\n\nL. No, no, Miss Katie; I can't allow any running against each\nother. The atoms never do that, whatever human creatures do. You\nmust all know your places, and find your way to them without\njostling.\n\nLILY. But how ever shall we do that?\n\nISABEL. Mustn't the ones in the middle be the nearest, and the\noutside ones farther off--when we go away to scatter, I mean?\n\nL. Yes; you must be very careful to keep your order; you will soon\nfind out how to do it; it is only like soldiers forming square,\nexcept that each must stand still in her place as she reaches it,\nand the others come round her; and you will have much more\ncomplicated figures, afterwards, to form, than squares.\n\nISABEL. I'll put a stone at my place: then I shall know it.\n\nL. You might each nail a bit of paper to the turf, at your place,\nwith your name upon it: but it would be of no use, for if you\ndon't know your places, you will make a fine piece of business of\nit, while you are looking for your names. And, Isabel, if with a\nlittle head, and eyes, and a brain (all of them very good and\nserviceable of their kind, as such things go), you think you\ncannot know your place without a stone at it, after examining it\nwell,--how do you think each atom knows its place, when it never\nwas there before, and there's no stone at it?\n\nISABEL. But does every atom know its place?\n\nL. How else could it get there?\n\nMARY. Are they not attracted into their places?\n\nL. Cover a piece of paper with spots, at equal intervals; and then\nimagine any kind of attraction you choose, or any law of\nattraction, to exist between the spots, and try how, on that\npermitted supposition, you can attract them into the figure of a\nMaltese cross, in the middle of the paper.\n\nMARY (having tried it). Yes; I see that I cannot:--one would need\nall kinds of attractions, in different ways, at different places.\nBut you do not mean that the atoms are alive?\n\nL. What is it to be alive?\n\nDORA. There now; you're going to be provoking, I know.\n\nL. I do not see why it should be provoking to be asked what it is\nto be alive. Do you think you don't know whether you are alive or\nnot?\n\n(ISABEL skips to the end of the room and back.)\n\nL. Yes, Isabel, that's all very fine; and you and I may call that\nbeing alive: but a modern philosopher calls it being in a \"mode of\nmotion.\" It requires a certain quantity of heat to take you to the\nsideboard; and exactly the same quantity to bring you back again.\nThat's all.\n\nISABEL. No, it isn't. And besides, I'm not hot.\n\nL. I am, sometimes, at the way they talk. However, you know,\nIsabel, you might have been a particle of a mineral, and yet have\nbeen carried round the room, or anywhere else, by chemical forces,\nin the liveliest way.\n\nISABEL. Yes; but I wasn't carried: I carried myself.\n\nL. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what\nmakes a thing alive, as what makes it a Self. As soon as you are\nshut off from the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to\nbe alive.\n\nVIOLET (indignant). Oh, surely--surely that cannot be so. Is not\nall the life of the soul in communion, not separation?\n\nL. There can be no communion where there is no distinction. But we\nshall be in an abyss of metaphysics presently, if we don't look\nout; and besides, we must not be too grand, to-day, for the\nyounger children. We'll be grand, some day, by ourselves, if we\nmust. (The younger children are not pleased, and prepare to\nremonstrate; but, knowing by experience, that all conversations in\nwhich the word \"communion\" occurs, are unintelligible, think\nbetter of it.) Meantime, for broad answer about the atoms. I do\nnot think we should use the word \"life,\" of any energy which does\nnot belong to a given form. A seed, or an egg, or a young animal,\nare properly called \"alive\" with respect to the force belonging to\nthose forms, which consistently develops that form, and no other.\nBut the force which crystallizes a mineral appears to be chiefly\nexternal, and it does not produce an entirely determinate and\nindividual form, limited in size, but only an aggregation, in\nwhich some limiting laws must be observed.\n\nMARY. But I do not see much difference, that way, between a\ncrystal and a tree.\n\nL. Add, then, that the mode of the energy in a living thing\nimplies a continual change in its elements; and a period for its\nend. So you may define life by its attached negative, death; and\nstill more by its attached positive, birth. But I won't be plagued\nany more about this, just now; if you choose to think the crystals\nalive, do, and welcome. Rocks have always been called \"living\" in\ntheir native place.\n\nMARY. There's one question more; then I've done.\n\nL. Only one?\n\nMARY. Only one.\n\nL. But if it is answered, won't it turn into two?\n\nMARY. No; I think it will remain single, and be comfortable.\n\nL. Let me hear it.\n\nMARY. You know, we are to crystallize ourselves out of the whole\nplayground. Now, what playground have the minerals! Where are they\nscattered before they are crystallized; and where are the crystals\ngenerally made?\n\nL. That sounds to me more like three questions than one, Mary. If\nit is only one, it is a wide one.\n\nMARY. I did not say anything about the width of it.\n\nL. Well, I must keep it within the best compass I can. When rocks\neither dry from a moist state, or cool from a heated state, they\nnecessarily alter in bulk; and cracks, or open spaces, form in\nthem in all directions. These cracks must be filled up with solid\nmatter, or the rock would eventually become a ruinous heap. So,\nsometimes by water, sometimes by vapor, sometimes nobody knows\nhow, crystallizable matter is brought from somewhere, and fastens\nitself in these open spaces, so as to bind the rock together again\nwith crystal cement. A vast quantity of hollows are formed in\nlavas by bubbles of gas, just as the holes are left in bread well\nbaked. In process of time these cavities are generally filled with\nvarious crystals.\n\nMARY. But where does the crystallizing substance come from?\n\nL. Sometimes out of the rock itself; sometimes from below or\nabove, through the veins. The entire substance of the contracting\nrock may be filled with liquid, pressed into it so as to fill\nevery pore;--or with mineral vapor;--or it may be so charged at\none place, and empty at another. There's no end to the \"may be's.\"\nBut all that you need fancy, for our present purpose, is that\nhollows in the rocks, like the caves in Derbyshire, are traversed\nby liquids or vapor containing certain elements in a more or less\nfree or separate state, which crystallize on the cave walls.\n\nSIBYL. There now;--Mary has had all her questions answered: it's\nmy turn to have mine.\n\nL. Ah, there's a conspiracy among you, I see. I might have guessed\nas much.\n\nDORA. I'm sure you ask us questions enough! How can you have the\nheart, when you dislike so to be asked them yourself?\n\nL. My dear child, if people do not answer questions, it does not\nmatter how many they are asked, because they've no trouble with\nthem. Now, when I ask you questions, I never expect to be\nanswered; but when you ask me, you always do; and it's not fair.\n\nDORA. Very well, we shall understand, next time.\n\nSIBYL. No, but seriously, we all want to ask one thing more, quite\ndreadfully.\n\nL. And I don't want to be asked it, quite dreadfully; but you'll\nhave your own way, of course.\n\nSIBYL. We none of us understand about the lower Pthah. It was not\nmerely yesterday; but in all we have read about him in Wilkinson,\nor in any book, we cannot understand what the Egyptians put their\ngod into that ugly little deformed shape for.\n\nL. Well, I'm glad it's that sort of question; because I can answer\nanything I like to that.\n\nEGYPT. Anything you like will do quite well for us; we shall be\npleased with the answer, if you are.\n\nL. I am not so sure of that, most gracious queen; for I must begin\nby the statement that queens seem to have disliked all sorts of\nwork, in those days, as much as some queens dislike sewing to-day.\n\nEGYPT. Now, it's too bad! and just when I was trying to say the\ncivillest thing I could!\n\nL. But, Egypt, why did you tell me you disliked sewing so?\n\nEGYPT. Did not I show you how the thread cuts my fingers? and I\nalways get cramp, somehow, in my neck, if I sew long.\n\nL. Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought everybody got cramp\nin their neck, if they sewed long; and that thread always cut\npeople's fingers. At all events, every kind of manual labor was\ndespised both by them, and the Greeks; and, while they owned the\nreal good and fruit of it, they yet held it a degradation to all\nwho practiced it. Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, they\nperceived that the special practice necessary to bring any manual\nart to perfection strengthened the body distortedly; one energy or\nmember gaining at the expense of the rest. They especially dreaded\nand despised any kind of work that had to be done near fire: yet,\nfeeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as the basis of all\nother work, they expressed this mixed reverence and scorn in the\nvaried types of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah.\n\nSIBYL. But what did you mean by making him say \"Everything great I\ncan make small, and everything small great\"?\n\nL. I had my own separate meaning in that. We have seen in modern\ntimes the power of the lower Pthah developed in a separate way,\nwhich no Greek nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the\ncharacter of pure and eyeless manual labor to conceive everything\nas subjected to it: and, in reality, to disgrace and diminish all\nthat is so subjected, aggrandizing itself, and the thought of\nitself, at the expense of all noble things. I heard an orator, and\na good one too, at the Working Men's College, the other day, make\na great point in a description of our railroads; saying, with\ngrandly conducted emphasis, \"They have made man greater, and the\nworld less.\" His working audience were mightily pleased; they\nthought it so very fine a thing to be made bigger themselves; and\nall the rest of the world less. I should have enjoyed asking them\n(but it would have been a pity--they were so pleased), how much\nless they would like to have the world made;--and whether, at\npresent, those of them really felt the biggest men, who lived in\nthe least houses.\n\nSIBYL. But then, why did you make Pthah say that he could make\nweak things strong, and small things great?\n\nL. My dear, he is a boaster and self-assertor, by nature; but it\nis so far true. For instance, we used to have a fair in our\nneighborhood--a very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such\nan one; but if you look at the engraving of Turner's \"St.\nCatherine's Hill,\" you will see what it was like. There were\ncurious booths, carried on poles; and peep-shows; and music, with\nplenty of drums and cymbals; and much barley-sugar and\ngingerbread, and the like: and in the alleys of this fair the\nLondon populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion, very\nthoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day; he\nmade the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like\nhis own crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you\ndon't look where you are going; and he turned all the canvas into\npanes of glass, and put it up on his iron cross-poles; and made\nall the little booths into one great booth;--and people said it\nwas very fine, and a new style of architecture; and Mr. Dickens\nsaid nothing was ever like it in Fairy-land, which was very true.\nAnd then the little Pthah set to work to put fine fairings in it;\nand he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he\ncould paint (because he had none himself), and he got the angels\ndown from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his\ngingerbread of old times; and he sent for everything else he could\nthink of, and put it in his booth. There are the casts of Niobe\nand her children; and the Chimpanzee; and the wooden Caffres and\nNew-Zealanders; and the Shakespeare House; and Le Grand Blondin,\nand Le Petit Blondin; and Handel; and Mozart; and no end of shops,\nand buns, and beer; and all the little-Pthah-worshippers say,\nnever was anything so sublime!\n\nSIBYL. Now, do you mean to say you never go to these Crystal\nPalace concerts? they're as good as good can be.\n\nL. I don't go to the thundering things with a million of bad\nvoices in them. When I want a song, I get Julia Mannering and Lucy\nBertram and Counselor Pleydell to sing \"We be three poor Mariners\"\nto me; then I've no headache next morning. But I do go to the\nsmaller concerts, when I can; for they are very good, as you say,\nSibyl: and I always get a reserved seat somewhere near the\norchestra, where I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum.\n\nSIBYL. Now DO be serious, for one minute.\n\nL. I am serious--never was more so. You know one can't see the\nmodulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration\nof the drummer's hand; and it's lovely.\n\nSIBYL. But fancy going to a concert, not to hear, but to see!\n\nL. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite right thing, I believe, is to\ngo there to talk. I confess, however, that in most music, when\nvery well done, the doing of it is to me the chiefly interesting\npart of the business. I'm always thinking how good it would be for\nthe fat, supercilious people, who care so little for their half-\ncrown's worth, to be set to try and do a half-crown's worth of\nanything like it.\n\nMARY. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to\nthe people of London?\n\nL. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear; but\nthey are spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the\npalace (as they call it) is a better place for them, by much, than\nthe old fair; and it is always there, instead of for three days\nonly; and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And good use may\nbe made of the things in it, if you know how: but as for its\nteaching the people, it will teach them nothing but the lowest of\nthe lower Pthah's work--nothing but hammer and tongs. I saw a\nwonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the other day.\nSome unhappy metal-worker--I am not sure if it was not a metal-\nworking firm--had taken three years to make a Golden eagle.\n\nSIBYL. Of real gold?\n\nL. No; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metals--\nit is no matter what. I meant a model of our chief British eagle.\nEvery feather was made separately; and every filament of every\nfeather separately, and so joined on; and all the quills modeled\nof the right length and right section, and at last the whole\ncluster of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't\nthink much of my own drawing; but take my proud word for once,\nthat when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit\nof chalk in my pocket, and the Gray Harpy will sit, without\nscrewing his head round, for thirty seconds,--I can do a better\nthing of him in that time than the three years' work of this\nindustrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my\nobject,--not myself; and during the three years, the firm's\nobject, in every fiber of bronze it made, was itself, and not the\neagle. That is the true meaning of the little Pthah's having no\neyes--he can see only himself. The Egyptian beetle was not quite\nthe full type of him; our northern ground beetle is a truer one.\nIt is beautiful to see it at work, gathering its treasures (such\nas they are) into little round balls; and pushing them home with\nthe strong wrong end of it,--head downmost all the way,--like a\nmodern political economist with his ball of capital, declaring\nthat a nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues.\nBut away with you, children, now, for I'm getting cross.\n\nDORA. I'm going downstairs; I shall take care, at any rate, that\nthere are no little Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 4.\n\nTHE CRYSTAL ORDERS\n\n\nA working Lecture in the large Schoolroom; with experimental\nInterludes. The great bell has rung unexpectedly.\n\nKATHLEEN (entering disconsolate, though first at the summons). Oh\ndear, oh dear, what a day! Was ever anything so provoking! just\nwhen we wanted to crystallize ourselves;--and I'm sure it's going\nto rain all day long.\n\nL. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it. But I\ndon't see why Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that\nyou don't want to crystallize yourselves: you didn't, the day\nbefore yesterday, and you were not unhappy when it rained then.\n\nFLORRIE. Ah! but we do want to-day; and the rain's so tiresome.\n\nL. That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer\nby the expectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make\nyourselves unhappier than when you had nothing to look forward to,\nbut the old ones.\n\nISABEL. But then, to have to wait--wait--wait; and before we've\ntried it;--and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!\n\nL. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves\nuncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick\nperhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as\nuncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows,\nwhen he would not lie quiet.\n\nISABEL. But what ARE we to do to-day?\n\nL. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was\nnothing better to be done. And to practice patience. I can tell\nyou, children, THAT requires nearly as much practicing as music;\nand we are continually losing our lessons when the master comes.\nNow, to-day, here's a nice, little adagio lesson for us, if we\nplay it properly.\n\nISABEL. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it\nproperly.\n\nL. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to\npractice. All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes\nrightly, and in time. But there must be no hurry.\n\nKATHLEEN. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day.\n\nL. There's no music in a \"rest,\" Katie, that I know of: but\nthere's the making of music in it. And people are always missing\nthat part of the life-melody; and scrambling on without counting--\nnot that it's easy to count; but nothing on which so much depends\never IS easy. People are always talking of perseverance, and\ncourage, and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest\npart of fortitude,--and the rarest, too. I know twenty persevering\ngirls for one patient one: but it is only that twenty-first who\ncan do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience lies at\nthe root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself\nceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.\n\n(ISABEL and LILY sit down on the floor, and fold their hands. The\nothers follow their example.)\n\nGood children! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded\nhands are not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really\nsmiles at grief usually stands, or walks, or even runs: she seldom\nsits; though she may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor\nthing, by monuments; or like Chaucer's, \"with face pale, upon a\nhill of sand.\" But we are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we\nuse this calamitous fore-noon to choose the shapes we are to\ncrystallize into? we know nothing about them yet.\n\n(The pictures of resignation rise from the floor not in the\npatientest manner. General applause.)\n\nMARY (with one or two others). The very thing we wanted to ask you\nabout!\n\nLILY. We looked at the books about crystals, but they are so\ndreadful.\n\nL. Well, Lily, we must go through a little dreadfulness, that's a\nfact: no road to any good knowledge is wholly among the lilies and\nthe grass; there is rough climbing to be done always. But the\ncrystal-books are a little TOO dreadful, most of them, I admit;\nand we shall have to be content with very little of their help.\nYou know, as you cannot stand on each other's heads, you can only\nmake yourselves into the sections of crystals,--the figures they\nshow when they are cut through; and we will choose some that will\nbe quite easy. You shall make diamonds of yourselves--\n\nISABEL. Oh, no, no! we won't be diamonds, please.\n\nL, Yes, you shall, Isabel; they are very pretty things, if the\njewelers, and the kings and queens, would only let them alone. You\nshall make diamonds of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, and\nemeralds; and Irish diamonds; two of those--with Lily in the\nmiddle of one, which will be very orderly, of course; and Kathleen\nin the middle of the other, for which we will hope the best; and\nyou shall make Derbyshire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar,\nand gold, and silver, and--Quicksilver there's enough of in you,\nwithout any making.\n\nMARY. Now you know, the children will be getting quite wild we\nmust really get pencils and paper, and begin properly.\n\nL. Wait a minute, Miss Mary, I think as we the schoolroom clear\nto-day, I'll try to give you some notion of the three great orders\nor ranks of crystals, into which all the others seem more or less\nto fall. We shall only want one figure a day, in the playground,\nand that can be drawn in a minute: but the general ideas had\nbetter be fastened first. I must show you a great many minerals;\nso let me have three tables wheeled into the three windows, that\nwe may keep our specimens separate;--we will keep the three orders\nof crystals on separate tables.\n\n(First Interlude of pushing and pulling, and spreading of baize\ncovers. VIOLET, not particularly minding what she is about, gets\nherself jammed into a corner, and bid to stand out of the way; on\nwhich she devotes herself to meditation.)\n\nVIOLET (after interval of meditation). How strange it is that\neverything seems to divide into threes!\n\nL. Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy won't, though\nshamrock will, and daisies won't though lilies will.\n\nVIOLET. But all the nicest things seem to divide into threes.\n\nL. Violets won't.\n\nVIOLET. No; I should think not, indeed! But I mean the great\nthings.\n\nL. I've always heard the globe had four quarters.\n\nISABEL. Well; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all.\nSo mayn't it really be divided into three?\n\nL. If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of\nit, Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in; and if it were\ndivided into three in the inside of it, it would soon be no world\nto live in at all.\n\nDORA. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (Aside to\nMARY.) He will get off into political economy before we know where\nwe are. (Aloud.) But the crystals are divided into three, then?\n\nL. No; but there are three general notions by which we may best\nget hold of them. Then between these notions there are other\nnotions.\n\nLILY (alarmed). A great many? And shall we have to learn them all?\n\nL. More than a great many--a quite infinite many. So you cannot\nlearn them all.\n\nLILY (greatly relieved). Then may we only learn the three?\n\nL. Certainly; unless, when you have got those three notions, you\nwant to have some more notions;--which would not surprise me. But\nwe'll try for the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral\nnecklace this morning?\n\nKATHLEEN. Oh! who told you? It was in jumping. I'm so sorry!\n\nL. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it?\n\nKATHLEEN. I've lost some; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can\nonly get them out.\n\nL. You mean to get them out some day, I suppose; so try now. I\nwant them.\n\n(KATHLEEN empties her pocket on the floor. The beads disperse. The\nSchool disperses also. Second Interlude--hunting piece.)\n\nL. (after waiting patiently for a quarter of an hour, to ISABEL,\nwho comes up from under the table with her hair all about her ears\nand the last findable beads in her hand.) Mice are useful little\nthings sometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those beads\ncrystallized. How many ways are there of putting them in order?\n\nISABEL. Well, first one would string them, I suppose?\n\nL. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string ultimate atoms;\nbut you can put them in a row, and then they fasten themselves\ntogether, somehow, into a long rod or needle. We will call these\n\"NEEDLE-crystals.\" What would be the next way?\n\nISABEL. I suppose, as we are to get together in the playground,\nwhen it stops raining, in different shapes?\n\nL. Yes; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you\ncan, to begin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close.\n\nISABEL (after careful endeavor). I can't get them closer.\n\nL. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to\nthrow yourselves into square in this confused way, you will never\nknow your places; so you had better consider every square as made\nof rods, put side by side. Take four beads of equal size, first,\nIsabel; put them into a little square. That, you may consider as\nmade up of two rods of two beads each. Then you can make a square\na size larger, out of three rods of three. Then the next square\nmay be a size larger. How many rods, Lily?\n\nLILY. Four rods of four beads each, I suppose.\n\nL. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. But now, look here;\nmake another square of four beads again. You see they leave a\nlittle opening in the center.\n\nISABEL (pushing two opposite ones closer together). Now they\ndon't.\n\nL. No; but now it isn't a square; and by pushing the two together\nyou have pushed the two others farther apart.\n\nISABEL. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were!\n\nL. Yes; for before, each of them only touched two of the others,\nbut now each of the two in the middle touches the other three.\nTake away one of the outsiders, Isabel: now you have three in a\ntriangle--the smallest triangle you can make out of the beads. Now\nput a rod of three beads on at one side. So, you have a triangle\nof six beads; but just the shape of the first one. Next a rod of\nfour on the side of that; and you have a triangle of ten beads:\nthen a rod of five on the side of that; and you have a triangle of\nfifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads on the side, and a\ntriangle with five beads on the side; equal-sided, therefore, like\nthe square. So, however few or many you may be, you may soon learn\nhow to crystallize quickly into these two figures, which are the\nfoundation of form in the commonest, and therefore actually the\nmost important, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our\nesteem, the most important, minerals of the world. Look at this in\nmy hand.\n\nVIOLET. Why, it is leaf gold!\n\nL. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at\nall, but woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold\nenough there to gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten\nthin.\n\nVIOLET. How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with\nfrost.\n\nL. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It\nis not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is\nTransylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the\nmines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so\nalloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that\nmay be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it,\nit's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven so fine anywhere\nelse.\n\nMARY (who has been looking through her magnifying glass). But this\nis not woven. This is all made of little triangles.\n\nL. Say \"patched,\" then, if you must be so particular. But if you\nfancy all those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are\ninfinitely small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as\nwe built our great triangle of the beads, what word will you take\nfor the manufacture?\n\nMAY. There's no word--it is beyond words.\n\nL. Yes, and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts\ntoo. But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not\nfrom the ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to\nremember the second kind of crystals, LEAF-crystals, or FOLIATED\ncrystals, though I show you the form in gold first only to make a\nstrong impression on you, for gold is not generally or\ncharacteristically, crystallized in leaves; the real type of\nfoliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which if you once feel well\nand break well, you will always know again; and you will often\nhave occasion to know it, for you will find it everywhere nearly,\nin hill countries.\n\nKATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?\n\nL. To powder, if you like.\n\n(Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation. Third\nInterlude. It sustains severely philosophic al treatment at all\nhands.)\n\nFLORRIE (to whom the last fragments have descended). Always\nleaves, and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust?\n\nL. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.\n\n(Shows them to FLORRIE through magnifying glass.)\n\nISABEL (peeping over FLORRIE'S shoulder). But then this bit under\nthe glass looks like that bit out of the glass! If we could break\nthis bit under the glass, what would it be like?\n\nL. It would be all leaves still.\n\nISABEL. And then if we broke those again?\n\nL. All less leaves still.\n\nISABEL (impatient). And if we broke them again, and again, and\nagain, and again, and again?\n\nL. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only\nsee it. Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from\nthe large ones: because I can bend them up and down, and they stay\nbent; while the large flake, though it bent easily a little way,\nsprang back when you let it go, and broke when you tried to bend\nit far. And a large mass would not bend at all.\n\nMARY. Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same\nway?\n\nL. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic\nspecimen of a foliated crystallization. The little triangles are\nportions of solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks\nlike a black mica; but you see it is made up of triangles like the\ngold, and stands, almost accurately, as an intermediate link, in\ncrystals, between mica and gold. Yet this is the commonest, as\ngold the rarest, of metals.\n\nMARY. Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.\n\nL. It is rust of iron, finely crystallized: from its resemblance\nto mica, it is often called micaceous iron.\n\nKATHLEEN. May we break this, too?\n\nL. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides,\nit would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the\nglass again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the\ntriangles where they lap over each other. The gold has the same:\nbut you see them better here, terrace above terrace, countless,\nand, in successive angles, like superb fortified bastions.\n\nMAY. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?\n\nL. Far from it; mica is occasionally so. but usually of hexagons;\nand here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show\nyou that the leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as\nwell as their autumnal gold.\n\nFLORRIE. Oh! oh! oh! (jumps for joy).\n\nL. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?\n\nFLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.\n\nL. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a\nshower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely\nthey are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?\n\nFLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks,\nI suppose.\n\nL. Now you have it, Florrie.\n\nVIOLET (sighing). There are so many beautiful things we never see!\n\nL. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we\nshould all sigh for--that there are so many ugly things we never\nsee.\n\nVIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!\n\nL. You had better say, \"We don't want to suffer them.\" You ought\nto be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than\nhuman eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more\nevil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more\nthan his hands can ever heal.\n\nVIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?\n\nL. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our\nneglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of\nhalf an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone, and takes more\nnotice of it than of all the green in the wood, and you, or I, or\nany of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us\nwere in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day,\nof men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger,\nfaster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;--and then\ngo out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened.\n\nMAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.\n\nL. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the\nother day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him; and\nplayed no croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and\nwhat is more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little\nwhile; and ask no questions till I've done: for we branch\n(\"exfoliate,\" I should say, mineralogically) always into something\nelse,--though that's my fault more than yours; but I must go\nstraight on now. You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of leaf-\ncrystals; and you see the sort of look they have: you can easily\nremember that \"folium\" is Latin for a leaf, and that the separate\nflakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called \"folia;\" but,\nbecause mica is the most characteristic of these stones, other\nthings that are like it in structure are called \"micas;\" thus we\nhave Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-\nmica, which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this\nfoliated iron is called \"micaceous iron.\" You have then these two\ngreat orders, Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows;\nand Leaf-crystals, made (probably) of needles interwoven; now,\nlastly, there are crystals of a third order, in heaps, or knots,\nor masses, which may be made either of leaves laid one upon\nanother, or of needles bound like Roman fasces; and mica itself,\nwhen it is well crystallized, puts itself into such masses, as if\nto show us how others are made. Here is a brown six-sided crystal,\nquite as beautifully chiseled at the sides as any castle tower;\nbut you see it is entirely built of folia of mica, one laid above\nanother, which break away the moment I touch the edge with my\nknife. Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the same size\nand color, which I want you to compare with the mica carefully;\nbut as I cannot wait for you to do it just now, I must tell you\nquickly what main differences to look for. First, you will feel it\nfar heavier than the mica. Then, though its surface looks quite\nmicaceous in the folia of it when you try them with the knife, you\nwill find you cannot break them away--\n\nKATHLEEN. May I try?\n\nL. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you.\n(Experimental pause. KATHLEEN doing her best.) You'll have that\nknife shutting on your finger presently, Kate; and I don't know a\ngirl who would like less to have her hand tied up for a week.\n\nKATHLEEN (who also does not like to be beaten--giving up the knife\ndespondently.). What CAN the nasty hard thing be?\n\nL. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate: very hard set\ncertainly, yet not so hard as it might be. If it were thoroughly\nwell crystallized, you would see none of those micaceous\nfractures; and the stone would be quite red and clear, all\nthrough.\n\nKATHLEEN. Oh, cannot you show us one?\n\nL. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful one in the clasp\nof her favorite bracelet.\n\nKATHLEEN. Why, that's a ruby!\n\nL. Well, so is that thing you've been scratching at.\n\nKATHLEEN. My goodness! (Takes up the stone again, very delicately;\nand drops it. General consternation.)\n\nL. Never mind, Katie, you might drop it from the top of the house,\nand do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and\nas good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have\nyour faults, like other people, and, if I were you, the next time\nI wanted to assert anything energetically, I would assert it by\n\"my badness,\" not \"my goodness.\"\n\nKATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!\n\nL. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my \"too-badness.\" But you\nmay as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look\ncarefully at the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its\nsurface, and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the same\nstone as the ruby), in which you will see the same lovely\nstructure, like the threads of the finest white cobweb. I do not\nknow what is the exact method of a ruby's construction, but you\nsee by these lines, what fine construction there is, even in this\nhardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually appears as a\nmassive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical\ndistinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but,\npractically, crystallized masses throw themselves into one of the\nthree groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either as\nNeedles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or\nfibers), they make the stones or rocks formed out of them\n\"FIBROUS;\" when they are in folia, they make them \"FOLIATED;\" when\nthey are in knots (or grains), \"GRANULAR.\" Fibrous rocks are\ncomparatively rare, in mass; but fibrous minerals are innumerable;\nand it is often a question which really no one but a young lady\ncould possibly settle, whether one should call the fibers\ncomposing them \"threads\" or \"needles.\" Here is amianthus, for\ninstance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you\never sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper\npoints and brighter luster than your finest needles have; and\nfastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest\nlace; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere\npurple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is\nred oxide of copper (you must not breathe on it as you look, or\nyou may blow some of the films of it off the stone), which is\nsimply a woven tissue of scarlet silk. However, these finer\nthread-forms are comparatively rare, while the bolder and needle-\nlike crystals occur constantly; so that, I believe, \"Needle-\ncrystal\" is the best word (the grand one is, \"Acicular crystal,\"\nbut Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily\nunderstood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf-\ncrystals, as I said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and\nthe Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form essentially\ngranular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks; and it is always a\npoint of more interest to me (and I think will ultimately be to\nyou), to consider the causes which force a given mineral to take\nany one of these three general forms, than what the peculiar\ngeometrical limitations are, belonging to its own crystals.\n[Footnote: Note iv.] It is more interesting to me, for instance,\nto try and find out why the red oxide of copper, usually\ncrystallizing in cubes or octahedrons, makes itself exquisitely,\nout of its cubes, into this red silk in one particular Cornish\nmine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the\noctahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that\nmathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls'\nstrength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners\nof crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the\nmost curious teaching for you. For in the fulfillment, to the best\nof their power, of their adopted form under given circumstances,\nthere are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue;\nand indeed expressible under no term so proper as that of the\nVirtue, or Courage of crystals;--which, if you are not afraid of\nthe crystals making you ashamed of yourselves, we will by to get\nsome notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, and more\nabout yourselves than the minerals. Don't come unless you like.\n\nMARY. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but\nwe'll come, for all that.\n\nL. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread\ncrystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying\nglasses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads\nabout them. For the best thoughts are generally those which come\nwithout being forced, one does not know how. And so I hope you\nwill get through your wet day patiently.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 5.\n\nCRYSTAL VIRTUES\n\n\nA quiet talk, in the afternoon, by the sunniest window of the\nDrawing-room. Present: FLORRIE, ISABEL, MAY, LUCILLA, KATHLEEN,\nDORA, MARY, and some others, who have saved time for the bye-\nLecture.\n\nL. So you have really come, like good girls, to be made ashamed of\nyourselves?\n\nDORA (very meekly). No, we needn't be made so; we always are.\n\nL. Well, I believe that's truer than most pretty speeches: but you\nknow, you saucy girl, some people have more reason to be so than\nothers. Are you sure everybody is, as well as you?\n\nTHE GENERAL VOICE. Yes, yes; everybody.\n\nL. What! Florrie ashamed of herself?\n\n(FLORRIE hides behind the curtain.)\n\nL. And Isabel?\n\n(ISABEL hides under the table.)\n\nL. And Mary?\n\n(MARY runs into the corner behind the piano.)\n\nL. And Lucilla?\n\n(LUCILLA hides her face in her hands.)\n\nL. Dear, dear; but this will never do. I shall have to tell you of\nthe faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in\nheart again.\n\nMAY (coming out of her corner). Oh! have the crystals faults, like\nus?\n\nL. Certainly, May. Their best virtues are shown in fighting their\nfaults; and some have a great many faults; and some are very\nnaughty crystals indeed.\n\nFLORRIE (from behind her curtain). As naughty as me?\n\nISABEL (peeping out from under the table-cloth). Or me?\n\nL. Well, I don't know. They never forget their syntax, children,\nwhen once they've been taught it. But I think some of them are, on\nthe whole, worse than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to\nlook so radiant, all in a minute, on that account.\n\nDORA. Oh! but it's so much more comfortable.\n\n(Everybody seems to recover their spirits. Eclipse of FLORRIE and\nISABEL terminates.)\n\nL. What kindly creatures girls are, after all, to their neighbors'\nfailings! I think you may be ashamed of yourselves indeed, now,\nchildren! I can tell you, you shall hear of the highest\ncrystalline merits that I can think of, to-day: and I wish there\nwere more of them; but crystals have a limited, though a stern,\ncode of morals; and their essential virtues are but two;--the\nfirst is to be pure, and the second to be well shaped.\n\nMARY. Pure! Does that mean clear--transparent?\n\nL. No; unless in the case of a transparent substance. You cannot\nhave a transparent crystal of gold; but you may have a perfectly\npure one.\n\nISABEL. But you said it was the shape that made things be\ncrystals; therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first\nvirtue, not their second?\n\nL. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only\ntheir second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and\nthings which the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly,\nor shaken, it must take what shape it can; but it seems as if,\neven then, it had in itself the power of rejecting impurity, if it\nhas crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well\nenough shaped in its way; but it seems to have been languid and\nsick at heart; and some white milky substance has got into it, and\nmixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite\nyellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on the\nsurface. Here is another, broken into a thousand separate facets\nand out of all traceable shape; but as pure as a mountain spring.\nI like this one best.\n\nTHE AUDIENCE. So do I--and I--and I.\n\nMARY. Would a crystallographer?\n\nL. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified\nin the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile\nquestion, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a\nprior, if not a nobler, virtue; at all events it is most\nconvenient to think about it first.\n\nMARY. But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be\nthought--I mean, much to puzzle one?\n\nL. I don't know what you call \"much.\" It is a long time since I\nmet with anything in which there was little. There's not much in\nthis, perhaps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean,--and\nthere's an end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart--\nonly you can wash your hands without changing them, but not\nhearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, it will\nbe as well to take care that your hearts don't want much washing;\nfor they may perhaps need wringing also, when they do.\n\n(Audience doubtful and uncomfortable. LUCILLA at last takes\ncourage.)\n\nLUCILLA. Oh! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean?\n\nL. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep them so, when they\nare.\n\nLUCILLA. When they are! But, sir--\n\nL. Well?\n\nLUCILLA. Sir--surely--are we not told that they are all evil?\n\nL. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground you are\ngetting upon; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we\nunderstand what THEIR good and evil consist in; they may help us\nafterwards to some useful hints about our own. I said that their\ngoodness consisted chiefly in purity of substance, and perfectness\nof form: but those are rather the EFFECTS of their goodness, than\nthe goodness itself. The inherent virtues of the crystals,\nresulting in these outer conditions, might really seem to be best\ndescribed in the words we should use respecting living creatures--\n\"force of heart\" and \"steadiness of purpose.\" There seem to be in\nsome crystals, from the beginning, an unconquerable purity of\nvital power, and strength of crystal spirit. Whatever dead\nsubstance, unacceptant of this energy, comes in their way, is\neither rejected, or forced to take some beautiful subordinate\nform; the purity of the crystal remains unsullied, and every atom\nof it bright with coherent energy. Then the second condition is,\nthat from the beginning of its whole structure, a fine crystal\nseems to have determined that it will be of a certain size and of\na certain shape; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here\nis a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form,\nand one which it might seem very difficult to build--a pyramid\nwith convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there is\nnot a flaw in its contour throughout; not one of its myriads of\ncomponent sides but is as bright as a jeweler's faceted work (and\nfar finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp\nas javelins; their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything\nmore resolute, consummate, determinate in form, cannot be\nconceived. Here, on the other hand, is a crystal of the same\nsubstance, in a perfectly simple type of form--a plain six-sided\nprism; but from its base to its point,--and it is nine inches\nlong,--it has never for one instant made up its mind what\nthickness it will have. It seems to have begun by making itself as\nthick as it thought possible with the quantity of material at\ncommand. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it has\nclumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has\nthinned itself, in a panic of economy; then puffed itself out\nagain; then starved one side to enlarge another; then warped\nitself quite out of its first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, jagged\non the edge, distorted in the spine, it exhibits a quite human\nimage of decrepitude and dishonor; but the worst of all the signs\nof its decay and helplessness is that half-way up a parasite\ncrystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself in the\nside of the larger one, eating out a cavity round its root, and\nthen growing backwards, or downwards contrary to the direction of\nthe main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least difference in\npurity of substance between the first most noble stone, and this\nignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its\nwill, or want of will.\n\nMARY. Oh, if we could but understand the meaning of it all!\n\nL. We can understand all that is good for us. It is just as true\nfor us as for the crystal, that the nobleness of life depends on\nits consistency,--clearness of purpose--quiet and ceaseless\nenergy. All doubt and repenting, and botching and re-touching and\nwondering what will it be best to do next, are vice, as well as\nmisery.\n\nMARY (much wondering). But must not one repent when one does\nwrong, and hesitate when one can't see one's way?\n\nL. You have no business at all to do wrong, nor to get into any\nway that you cannot see. Your intelligence should always be far in\nadvance of your act. Whenever you do not know what you are about,\nyou are sure to be doing wrong.\n\nKATHLEEN. Oh, dear, but I never know what I am about!\n\nL. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to know, if you know\nthat. And you find that you have done wrong afterwards; and\nperhaps some day you may begin to know, or at least, think, what\nyou are about.\n\nISABEL. But surely people can't do very wrong if they don't know,\ncan they? I mean, they can't be very naughty. They can be wrong,\nlike Kathleen or me, when we make mistakes; but not wrong in the\ndreadful way. I can't express what I mean; but there are two sorts\nof wrong, are there not?\n\nL. Yes, Isabel; but you will find that the great difference is\nbetween kind and unkind wrongs, not between meant and unmeant\nwrong. Very few people really mean to do wrong,--in a deep sense,\nnone. They only don't know what they are about. Cain did not mean\nto do wrong when he killed Abel.\n\n(ISABEL draws a deep breath, and opens her eyes very wide.)\n\nL. No, Isabel; and there are countless Cains among us now, who\nkill their brothers by the score a day, not only for less\nprovocation than Cain had, but for NO provocation,--and merely for\nwhat they can make of their bones,--yet do not think they are\ndoing wrong in the least. Then sometimes you have the business\nreversed, as over in America these last years, where you have seen\nAbel resolutely killing Cain, and not thinking he is doing wrong\nThe great difficulty is always to open people's eyes: to touch\ntheir feelings and break their hearts, is easy, the difficult\nthing is to break their heads. What does it matter as long as they\nremain stupid, whether you change their feelings or not? You\ncannot be always at their elbow to tell them what is right and\nthey may just do as wrong as before or worse, and their best\nintentions merely make the road smooth for them,--you know where,\nchildren. For it is not the place itself that is paved with them\nas people say so often. You can't pave the bottomless pit, but you\nmay the road to it\n\nMAY. Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely\nthat is the right for them, isn't it?\n\nL. No, May, not a bit of it right is right, and wrong is wrong. It\nis only the fool who does wrong, and says he \"did it for the\nbest.\" And if there's one sort of person in the world that the\nBible speaks harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular\nand chief way of saying \"There is no God\" is this of declaring\nthat whatever their \"public opinion\" may be is right and that\nGod's opinion is of no consequence.\n\nMAY. But surely nobody can always know what is right?\n\nL. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of\nit to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow.\nHere for instance, you children are at school, and have to learn\nFrench, and arithmetic, and music, and several other such things.\nThat is your \"right\" for the present; the \"right\" for us, your\nteachers, is to see that you learn as much as you can, without\nspoiling your dinner, your sleep, or your play; and that what you\ndo learn, you learn well. You all know when you learn with a will,\nand when you dawdle. There's no doubt of conscience about that, I\nsuppose?\n\nVIOLET. No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of\nlearning one's lesson?\n\nL. You don't call that a \"question,\" seriously, Violet? You are\nthen merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.\n\nMARY. But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise,\nhowever one tries to know or to do what is right!\n\nL. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that,\nwhatever you may have seen. A great many of young ladies'\ndifficulties arise from their falling in love with a wrong person;\nbut they have no business to let themselves fall in love, till\nthey know he is the right one.\n\nDORA. How many thousands ought he to have a year?\n\nL. (disdaining reply). There are, of course, certain crises of\nfortune when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly\nwhat one is about. There is never any real doubt about the path,\nbut you may have to walk very slowly.\n\nMARY. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has\nauthority over you?\n\nL. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the\nguilt is in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal\nthing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law\nof nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate YOU\nwho are poisoned, and not the person who gives you the dose. It is\na very strange law, but it IS a law. Nature merely sees to the\ncarrying out of the normal operation of arsenic. She never\ntroubles herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be\nstarved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's\nfaults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-\nday; do you think that your goodness comes all by your own\ncontriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your\ndispositions are naturally more angelic than those of the poor\ngirls who are playing, with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the\nalleys of our great towns; and who will one day fill their\nprisons,--or, better, their graves? Heaven only knows where they,\nand we who have cast them there shall stand at last But the main\njudgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, \"Did you keep\na good heart through it? What you were, others may answer for,--\nwhat you tried to be, you must answer for yourself. Was the heart\npure and true--tell us that?\n\nAnd so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I\nput aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your\nheart WAS pure and true, would not you?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.\n\nL. Because you have been taught that it is all evil--\"only evil\ncontinually.\" Somehow, often as people say that, they never seem,\nto me, to believe it. Do you really believe it?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes, sir, I hope so.\n\nL. That you have an entirely bad heart?\n\nLUCILLA (a little uncomfortable at the substitution of the\nmonosyllable for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in her\northodoxy). Yes, sir.\n\nL. Florrie, I am sure you are tired; I never like you to stay when\nyou are tired; but, you know, you must not play with the kitten\nwhile we're talking.\n\nFLORRIE. Oh! but I'm not tired, and I'm only nursing her. She'll\nbe asleep in my lap, directly.\n\nL. Stop! that puts me in mind of something I had to show you,\nabout minerals that are like hair I want a hair out of Tittie's\ntail.\n\nFLORRIE. (quite rude in her surprise, even to the point of\nrepeating expressions). Out of Tittie's tail!\n\nL. Yes, a brown one Lucilla, you can get at the tip of it nicely,\nunder Florrie's arm, just pull one out for me.\n\nLUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, it will hurt her so!\n\nL. Never mind, she can't scratch you while Florrie is holding her.\nNow that I think of it you had better pull out two.\n\nLUCILLA. But then she may scratch Florrie! and it will hurt her so\nsir! if you only want brown hairs, wouldn't two of mine do?\n\nL. Would you really rather pull out your own than Tittie's?\n\nLUCILLA. Oh, of course, if mine will do.\n\nL. But that's very wicked, Lucilla!\n\nLUCILLA. Wicked, sir?\n\nL. Yes, if your heart was not so bad, you would much rather pull\nall the cat's hairs out, than one of your own.\n\nLUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, I didn't mean bad like that.\n\nL. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, you would like to\ntie a kettle to Tittie's tail, and hunt her round the playground.\n\nLUCILLA. Indeed, I should not, sir.\n\nL. That's not true, Lucilla; you know it cannot be.\n\nLUCILLA. Sir?\n\nL. Certainly it is not;--how can you possibly speak any truth out\nof such a heart as you have? It is wholly deceitful.\n\nLUCILLA. Oh! no, no; I don't mean that way; I don't mean that it\nmakes me tell lies, quite out.\n\nL. Only that it tells lies within you?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes.\n\nL. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and say so; and I\nmay trust the outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul\nand false. Is that the way?\n\nLUCILLA. I suppose so: I don't understand it quite.\n\nL. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it?\nAre you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and\ndesperately wicked?\n\nLUCILLA (much relieved by finding herself among phrases with which\nshe is acquainted). Yes, sir. I'm sure of that.\n\nL. (pensively). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla.\n\nLUCILLA. So am I, indeed.\n\nL. What are you sorry with, Lucilla?\n\nLUCILLA. Sorry with, sir?\n\nL. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry; in your feet?\n\nLUCILLA (laughing a little). No, sir, of course.\n\nL. In your shoulders, then?\n\nLUCILLA. No, sir.\n\nL. You are sure of that? Because, I fear, sorrow in the shoulders\nwould not be worth much.\n\nLUCILLA. I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I really am sorry.\n\nL. If you really are! Do you mean to say that you are sure you are\nutterly wicked, and yet do not care?\n\nLUCILLA. No, indeed; I have cried about it often.\n\nL. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.\n\nL. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is\nnot the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you\ncry?\n\nLUCILLA. No, sir, of course.\n\nL. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the\nother grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?\n\nLUCILLA. (weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed). Indeed,\nsir, you know I can't understand it; but you know how it is\nwritten--\"another law in my members, warring against the law of my\nmind.\"\n\nL. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that\nit will help us to know that, if we neither understand what is\nwritten, nor feel it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning\nof one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to\nanother, introducing three new words--\"law,\" \"members,\" and\n\"mind\"; not one of which you at present know the meaning of; and\nrespecting which, you probably never will be much wiser; since men\nlike Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part of their lives in\nendeavoring to explain two of them.\n\nLUCILLA. Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.\n\nL. If I thought any one else could answer better than you,\nLucilla, I would: but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain\nyour feelings to you?\n\nLUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.\n\nL. Mind, I say your \"feelings,\" not your \"belief.\" For I cannot\nundertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little,\nfirst, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to\nsome issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else,\ntaught as you have been taught, says, on this matter,--you think\nthat there is an external goodness, a whited-sepulcher kind of\ngoodness, which appears beautiful outwardly, but is within full of\nuncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not\nsensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all.\n(Approving murmurs from audience.)\n\nL. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul?\n\n(Looked notes of interrogation.)\n\nL. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing? (Grave faces,\nsignifying \"Certainly not,\" and \"What next?\")\n\nL. And if you all could see in each other, with clear eyes,\nwhatever God sees beneath those fair faces of yours, you would not\nlike it?\n\n(Murmured No's.)\n\nL. Nor would it be good for you?\n\n(Silence.)\n\nL. The probability being that what God does not allow you to see,\nHe does not wish you to see; nor even to think of?\n\n(Silence prolonged.)\n\nL. It would not at all be good for you, for instance, whenever you\nwere washing your faces, and braiding your hair, to be thinking of\nthe shapes of the jawbones, and of the cartilage of the nose, and\nof the jagged sutures of the scalp?\n\n(Resolutely whispered No's.)\n\nL. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily processes of\nnourishment and decay?\n\n(No.)\n\nL. Still less if instead of merely inferior and preparatory\nconditions of structure, as in the skeleton,--or inferior offices\nof structure, as in operations of life and death,--there were\nactual disease in the body, ghastly and dreadful. You would try to\ncure it; but having taken such measures as were necessary, you\nwould not think the cure likely to be promoted by perpetually\nwatching the wounds, or thinking of them. On the contrary, you\nwould be thankful for every moment of forgetfulness: as, in daily\nhealth, you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled whatever\nis fearful in your frame under a sweet and manifest beauty; and\nhas made it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that,\nboth in yourself and in others;--not indeed concealing, or\nrefusing to believe in sickness, if it come; but never dwelling on\nit.\n\nNow, your wisdom and duty touching soul-sickness are just the\nsame. Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you; and so far as you\nknow any means of mending it, take those means, and have done;\nwhen you are examining yourself, never call yourself merely a\n\"sinner,\" that is very cheap abuse; and utterly useless. You may\neven get to like it, and be proud of it. But call yourself a liar,\na coward, a sluggard, a glutton, or an evil-eyed, jealous wretch,\nif you indeed find yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take\nsteady means to check yourself in whatever fault you have\nascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as you\nare in active way of mending, you will be no more inclined to moan\nover an undefined corruption. For the rest, you will find it less\neasy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do\nnot think of your faults; still less of others' faults: in every\nperson who comes near you, look for what is good and strong: honor\nthat; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it: and your\nfaults will drop off like dead leaves, when their time comes. If,\non looking back, your whole life should seem rugged as a palm-tree\nstem; still, never mind, so long as it has been growing; and has\nits grand green shade of leaves, and weight of honeyed fruit, at\ntop. And even if you cannot find much good in yourself at last,\nthink that it does not much matter to the universe either what you\nwere, or are; think how many people are noble, if you cannot be;\nand rejoice in THEIR nobleness. An immense quantity of modern\nconfession of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism;\nwhich will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose the\ncentralization of its interest in itself.\n\nMARY. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did\nthe old Greek proverb \"Know thyself\" come to be so highly\nesteemed?\n\nL. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and\nthe sun's--but do you think you can know yourself by looking INTO\nyourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking OUT of\nyourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare\nyour own interests with those of others; try to understand what\nyou appear to them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge\nof yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately; not\npositively: starting always with a wholesome conviction of the\nprobability that there is nothing particular about you. For\ninstance, some of you perhaps think you can write poetry. Dwell on\nyour own feelings; and doings:--and you will soon think yourselves\nTenth Muses; but forget your own feeling; and try, instead, to\nunderstand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and you will soon\nbegin to feel yourselves very foolish girls--which is much like\nthe fact.\n\nSo, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune,--you\nmeditate over its effects on you personally: and begin to think\nthat it is a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or the\nother of profound significance; and that all the angels in heaven\nhave left their business for a little while, that they may watch\nits effects on your mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of\nyour fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, greater a thousand-\nfold, are happening, every second, to twenty times worthier\npersons: and your self-consciousness will change into pity and\nhumility; and you will know yourself so far as to understand that\n\"there hath nothing taken thee but what is common to man.\"\n\nNow, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person\nof sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the\ninner evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they\nare often supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which\ncommon people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old\nmonks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was\nsaid), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What\nfruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your\nhedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and\ndeclare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and\nthat nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts\nthat way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster.\nNow, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body,\nnot on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific\ndistinction between the bad and the good ones. \"A good man, out of\nthe good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good;\nand an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that\nwhich is evil.\" \"They on the rock are they which, in an honest and\ngood heart, having heard the word, keep it.\" \"Delight thyself in\nthe Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.\" \"The\nwicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him\nthat is upright in heart.\" And so on; they are countless, to the\nsame effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to\nascertain how much or how little corruption there is in human\nnature; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that\nnature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are\npeople of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked\nheart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject,\nthis, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one you\nhave chiefly to hold in mind. \"Keep thy heart with all diligence,\nfor out of it are the issues of life.\"\n\nLUCILLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem!\n\nL. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look\nconsistent to a girl of fifteen? Look up at your own room window;\n--you can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left\nopen, as it ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a\nblack spot it looks, in the sunlighted wall?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes, it looks as black as ink.\n\nL. Yet you know it is a very bright room when you are inside of\nit; quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that\nits little lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very\nprobable, also, that if you could look into your heart from the\nsun's point of view, it might appear a very black hole indeed:\nnay, the sun may sometimes think good to tell you that it looks so\nto Him; but He will come into it, and make it very cheerful for\nyou, for all that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one\nquestion for YOU, remember, is not \"dark or light?\" but \"tidy or\nuntidy?\" Look well to your sweeping and garnishing; and be sure it\nis only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at\nhis back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 6.\n\nCRYSTAL QUARRELS\n\n\nFull conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game of\ncrystallization in the morning, of which various account has to be\nrendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why they were\nalways where they were not intended to be.\n\nL. (having received and considered the report). You have got on\npretty well children: but you know these were easy figures you\nhave been trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some\ncrystals of snow!\n\nMARY. I don't think those will be the most difficult:--they are so\nbeautiful that we shall remember our places better; and then they\nare all regular, and in stars: it is those twisty oblique ones we\nare afraid of.\n\nL. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leuthen, and learn\nFriedrich's \"oblique order.\" You will \"get it done for once, I\nthink, provided you CAN march as a pair of compasses would.\" But\nremember, when you can construct the most difficult single\nfigures, you have only learned half the game--nothing so much as\nthe half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it.\n\nMARY. Indeed; what else is there?\n\nL. It is seldom that any mineral crystallizes alone. Usually two\nor three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together.\nThey do this absolutely without flaw or fault, when they are in\nfine temper: and observe what this signifies. It signifies that\nthe two, or more, minerals of different natures agree, somehow,\nbetween themselves how much space each will want;--agree which of\nthem shall give way to the other at their junction; or in what\nmeasure each will accommodate itself to the other's shape! And\nthen each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space;\nyielding, or being yielded to, as it builds till each crystal has\nfitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-natured\nneighbor. So that, in order to practice this, in even the simplest\nterms, you must divide into two parties, wearing different colors;\neach must choose a different figure to construct; and you must\nform one of these figures through the other, both going on at the\nsame time.\n\nMARY. I think WE may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all\nunderstand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much\npreconcerting of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if\nthey really were living.\n\nL. Yes, it implies both the concurrence and compromise, regulating\nall wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do\nNOT always give way to each other. They show exactly the same\nvarieties of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they\nyield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming\nfantastic, but exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they\nwill not yield at all; but fight furiously for their places,\nlosing all shape and honor, and even their own likeness, in the\ncontest.\n\nMARY. But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never\nsees it spoken of in books?\n\nL. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant\nlaws under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite humors\nof the elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific\npeople rarely give themselves the trouble of thinking at all, when\nthey look at stones. Not that it is of much use to think; the more\none thinks, the more one is puzzled.\n\nMARY. Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany?\n\nL. Everything has its own wonders; but, given the nature of the\nplant, it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and why\nit does it, than, given anything we as yet know of stone-nature,\nto understand what a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at\nonce admit a kind of volition and choice, in the flower; but we\nare not accustomed to attribute anything of the kind to the\ncrystal. Yet there is, in reality, more likeness to some\nconditions of human feeling among stones than among plants. There\nis a far greater difference between kindly-tempered and ill-\ntempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two\nspecimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of\ncrystals depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties\nof disposition, than any associations of flowers. Here, for\ninstance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red,\nand the other silver white; the mica leaves exactly room enough\nfor the garnet to crystallize comfortably in; and the garnet lives\nhappily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in\nits cell. But here are wicked garnets living with wicked mica. See\nwhat ruin they make of each other! You cannot tell which is which;\nthe garnets look like dull red stains on the crumbling stone. By\nthe way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint,\nwhy he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all under\nhis care; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to look\nafter. The streets of Airolo are paved with them.\n\nMAY. Paved with garnets?\n\nL. With mica-slate and garnets; I broke this bit out of a paving\nstone. Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally\nfond of each other; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill\nbrought up. So it is always. Good crystals are friendly with\nalmost all other good crystals, however little they chance to see\nof each other, or however opposite their habits may be; while\nwicked crystals quarrel with one another, though they may be\nexactly alike in habits, and see each other continually. And of\ncourse the wicked crystals quarrel with the good ones.\n\nISABEL. Then do the good ones get angry?\n\nL. No, never: they attend to their own work and life; and live it\nas well as they can, though they are always the sufferers. Here,\nfor instance, is a rock crystal of the purest race and finest\ntemper, who was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighborhood,\nnear Beaufort in Savoy; and he has had to fight with vile\ncalcareous mud all his life. See here, when he was but a child, it\ncame down on him, and nearly buried him; a weaker crystal would\nhave died in despair; but he only gathered himself together, like\nHercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of crystal over\nthe clay; conquered it,--imprisoned it,--and lived on. Then, when\nhe was a little older, came more clay; and poured itself upon him\nhere, at the side; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived\non, in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, and tried\nto cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out\nbuttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central\nline as chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round\nthe clay; and conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his\nsummit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure\nthat for an instant; and left his flanks all rough, but pure; and\nfought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest and peak\nover peak, till the clay surrendered at last, and here is his\nsummit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay\nand crystal, half a foot high!\n\nLILY. Oh, how nice of him! What a dear, brave crystal! But I can't\nbear to see his flanks all broken, and the clay within them.\n\nL. Yes; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such\ncontention; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them\ncaptive is a kind of dishonor. But look, here has been quite a\ndifferent kind of struggle: the adverse power has been more\norderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its\nown. This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil: here is\na disciplined hostility; army against army.\n\nLILY. Oh, but this is much more beautiful!\n\nL. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue in them, it is a\npity they are at war, but they war grandly.\n\nMARY. But is this the same clay as in the other crystal?\n\nL. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, the enemy is\nreally limestone; but in the first, disordered, and mixed with\ntrue clay; while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallizes into\nits own primitive form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know:\nand out of these it makes regiments; and then squares of the\nregiments, and so charges the rock crystal, literally in square\nagainst column.\n\nISABEL. Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal\ndo?\n\nL. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it\nthrough at every charge. Look here,--and here! The loveliest\ncrystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.\n\nISABEL. Oh, dear; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then?\n\nL. No, softer. Very much softer.\n\nMARY. But then, how can it possibly cut the crystal?\n\nL. It did not really cut it, though it passes through it. The two\nwere formed together, as I told you but no one knows how. Still,\nit is strange that this hard quartz has in all cases a good-\nnatured way with it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of\nsoft things make nests for themselves in it; and it never makes a\nnest for itself in anything. It has all the rough outside work;\nand every sort of cowardly and weak mineral can shelter itself\nwithin it. Look; these are hexagonal plates of mica; if they were\noutside of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper; but\nthey are inside of it,--nothing can hurt them,--the crystal has\ntaken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate edges\nas sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock.\nHere is a piece of branched silver: you can bend it with a touch\nof your finger, but the stamp of its every fiber is on the rock in\nwhich it lay, as if the quartz had been as soft as wool.\n\nLILY. Oh, the good, good quartz! But does it never get inside of\nanything?\n\nL. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer,\nwithout being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes.\nBut I don't remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in\nanything else.\n\nISABEL. Please, there as something I heard you talking about, last\ntime, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but I heard something\nabout nests; and I thought it was birds' nests; and I couldn't\nhelp listening; and then, I remember, it was about \"nests of\nquartz in granite.\" I remember, because I was so disappointed!\n\nL. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly; but I can't tell you\nabout those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow: but there's no\ncontradiction between my saying then, and now; I will show you\nthat there is not, some day. Will you trust me meanwhile?\n\nISABEL. Won't I!\n\nL. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz;\nit is on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born\nquartz living with a green mineral, called epidote; and they are\nimmense friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong\nquartz-crystal, and a very weak and slender little one of epidote,\nhave begun to grow, close by each other, and sloping unluckily\ntowards each other, so that at last they meet. They cannot go on\ngrowing together; the quartz crystal is five times as thick, and\nmore than twenty times as strong[Footnote: Quartz is not much\nharder than epidote; the strength is only supposed to be in some\nproportion to the squares of the diameters.], as the epidote; but\nhe stops at once, just in the very crowning moment of his life,\nwhen he is building his own summit! He lets the pale little film\nof epidote grow right past him; stopping his own summit for it;\nand he never himself grows any more.\n\nLILY (after some silence of wonder). But is the quartz NEVER\nwicked then?\n\nL. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good-natured, compared to\nother things. Here are two very characteristic examples; one is\ngood quartz, living with good pearl-spar, and the other, wicked\nquartz, living with wicked pearl spar. In both, the quartz yields\nto the soft carbonate of iron: but, in the first place, the iron\ntakes only what it needs of room; and is inserted into the planes\nof the rock crystal with such precision that you must break it\naway before you can tell whether it really penetrates the quartz\nor not; while the crystals of iron are perfectly formed, and have\na lovely bloom on their surface besides. But here, when the two\nminerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged\nand torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron crystal whose\nshape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the worst of\nit, in both instances.\n\nVIOLET. Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with\nthe weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely\nthing, like the self-sacrifice of a human being.\n\nL. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing,\nViolet. It is often a necessary and noble thing; but no form nor\ndegree of suicide can be ever lovely.\n\nVIOLET. But self-sacrifice is not suicide!\n\nL. What is it then?\n\nVIOLET. Giving up one's self for another.\n\nL. Well; and what do you mean by \"giving up one's self\"?\n\nVIOLET. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's\nhappiness, and so on, to make others happy.\n\nL. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to\nmake him happy in that way.\n\nVIOLET (hesitating). In what way?\n\nL. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and\nhappiness.\n\nVIOLET. No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people,\none must.\n\nL. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about?\nBe it so; but how does this \"giving up\" differ from suicide then?\n\nVIOLET. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?\n\nL. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice,\nbut self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you\nsurrender the pleasure of walking, your foot will wither: you may\nas well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your\neyes will soon be unable to bear the light; you may as well pluck\nthem out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but\ngo on maiming, and you will soon slay.\n\nVIOLET. But why do you make me think of that verse then, about the\nfoot and the eye?\n\nL. You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot\nor eye offend you; but why SHOULD they offend you?\n\nVIOLET. I don't know; I never quite understood that.\n\nL. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if\nit is to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her ankle the other\nday, you saw how strongly it had to be bandaged; that is to say,\nprevented from all work, to recover it. But the bandage was not\n\"lovely.\"\n\nVIOLET. No, indeed.\n\nL. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten,\ninstead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off. But\nthe amputation would not have been \"lovely.\"\n\nVIOLET. No.\n\nL. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you,--if the\nlight that is in you be darkness, and your feet run into mischief,\nor are taken in the snare,--it is indeed time to pluck out, and\ncut off, I think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you\nmight have been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or\nmaimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.\n\nVIOLET (after a pause). But when one sacrifices one's self for\nothers?\n\nL. Why not rather others for you?\n\nVIOLET. Oh! but I couldn't bear that.\n\nL. Then why should they bear it?\n\nDORA (bursting in, indignant). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus,\nand Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and\nJephthah's daughter?\n\nL. (sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the Samaritan woman's\nson?\n\nDORA. Which Samaritan woman's?\n\nL. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.\n\nDORA (obeys). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!\n\nL. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean,\nchildren. What practical difference is there between \"that,\" and\nwhat you are talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of\ntheir own in the business, it is true; but neither had Iphigenia:\nthe Greek girl was certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that\nonly makes a difference in the dramatic effect; not in the\nprinciple.\n\nDORA (biting her lip). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean.\nAs if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this\nmoment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!\n\nL. I mean, and always have meant, simply this, Dora;--that the\nwill of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's\nhappiness, and life; not by each other's misery, or death. I made\nyou read that verse which so shocked you just now, because the\nrelations of parent and child are typical of all beautiful human\nhelp. A child may have to die for its parents; but the purpose of\nHeaven is that it shall rather live for them;--that, not by its\nsacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it\nshall be to them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in the hand\nof the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each\nother by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to\nslay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for\neach other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which\nturn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that\nthe thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men\nmust be named as one of the fatalest. They have so often been\ntaught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and\nfoolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on\nwhich Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid\nit,--that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their\nappointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not\nthe less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies\nthan to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to see\ndone, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others\ncauselessly: so far from denying himself, since he is pleased by\ngood, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And\nI only wish there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among\nthe good Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to\nband together in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of\nheart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came\nwithin their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe,\nalthough there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial\nin the correction of faults of character, the moment the character\nis formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done,\nwhich it costs you pain to do.\n\nVIOLET. But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we\ntry to please others, and not ourselves?\n\nL. My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right\nlife, we must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in\nall kind and courteous and affectionate ways: and these\nsubmissions and ministries to each other, of which you all know\n(none better) the practice and the preciousness, are as good for\nthe yielder as the receiver: they strengthen and perfect as much\nas they soften and refine. But the real sacrifice of all our\nstrength, or life, or happiness to others (though it may be\nneeded, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in their\nhand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier\ngives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary\nnecessity; not the fulfillment of the continuous law of being.\nSelf-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually\nfoolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental\nproclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made\nmost of their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their\nreligion so hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation,\nwith its lips, pretends to teach every man to \"love his neighbor\nas himself,\" with its hands and feet it clutches and tramples like\na wild beast; and practically lives, every soul of it that can, on\nother people's labor. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to\nhis fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts; and\nto strengthen them for the help of others. Do you think Titian\nwould have helped the world better by denying himself, and not\npainting; or Casella by denying himself, and not singing! The real\nvirtue is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us; as he was,\neven in purgatory. The very word \"virtue\" means not \"conduct\" but\n\"strength,\" vital energy in the heart. Were not you reading about\nthat group of words beginning with V,--vital, virtuous, vigorous,\nand so on,--in Max Muller, the other day, Sibyl? Can't you tell\nthe others about it?\n\nSIBYL. No, I can't; will you tell us, please?\n\nL. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow,\nand I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is,\nchildren, that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect\nthat \"mors\" means death and delaying; and \"vita\" means life and\ngrowing: and try always, not to mortify yourselves, but to vivify\nyourselves.\n\nVIOLET. But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections?\nand surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's\nservice, if not in man's?\n\nL. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you\nenough ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play.\nLily, what were you so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood,\nthis morning?\n\nLILY. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I; I was only trying\nto help them a little.\n\nL. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose?\n\nLILY. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome,\nwhen one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as\nfast as they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and\npushing, SO hard; and tumbling over and over,--it made one quite\npity them; so I took some of the bits of stick, and carried them\nforward a little, where I thought they wanted to put them; but\ninstead of being pleased, they left them directly, and ran about\nlooking quite angry and frightened; and at last ever so many of\nthem got up my sleeves, and bit me all over, and I had to come\naway.\n\nL. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar\nlying on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to\nask the ants to hear you a French verb.\n\nISABEL. Ah! but you didn't, though!\n\nL. Why not, Isabel? I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that\nverb by herself.\n\nISABEL. No; but the ants couldn't help her.\n\nL. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily?\n\nLILY (thinking). I ought to have learned something from them,\nperhaps.\n\nL. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the\nirregular verb?\n\nLILY. No, indeed. (Laughing, with some others.)\n\nL. What are you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants\nshould not have left their tasks to help Lily in hers,--since here\nis Violet thinking she ought to leave HER tasks, to help God in\nhis. Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and\nthinks only that \"He ought to learn something from her.\"\n\n(Tears in VIOLET'S eyes.)\n\nDORA (scarlet). It's too bad--it's a shame:--poor Violet!\n\nL. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red,\nand the other so pale, merely because you are made for a moment to\nfeel the absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use,\nin common with half the religious world. There is but one way in\nwhich man can ever help God--that is, by letting God help him: and\nthere is no way in which His name is more guiltily taken in vain,\nthan by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance\nof His.\n\nGod is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes\nus to be employed; and that employment is truly \"our Father's\nbusiness.\" He chooses work for every creature which will be\ndelightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us\nalways strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to\ndo; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is\nourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure,\nwhatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are\nnot happy ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and be as happy\nas you can. And when you cannot, at least don't plume yourselves\nupon pouting.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 7.\n\nHOME VIRTUES\n\n\nBy the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening.\n\nDORA. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright, and\nhere's your arm-chair--and you're to tell us all about what you\npromised.\n\nL. All about what?\n\nDORA. All about virtue.\n\nKATHLEEN. Yes, and about the words that begin with V.\n\nL. I heard you singing about a word that begins with V, in the\nplayground, this morning, Miss Katie.\n\nKATHLEEN. Me singing!\n\nMAY. Oh tell us--tell us.\n\nL. \"Vilikens and his--\"\n\nKATHLEEN (stopping his mouth). Oh! please don't. Where were you?\n\nISABEL. I'm sure I wish I had known where he was! We lost him\namong the rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to; oh, you\nnaughty--naughty--(climbs on his knee).\n\nDORA. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk.\n\nL. _I_ don't.\n\nDORA. Oh, but you must. You promised, you know.\n\nL. Yes, if all was well; but all's ill. I'm tired and cross; and I\nwon't.\n\nDORA. You're not a bit tired, and you're not crosser than two\nsticks; and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six.\nCome here, Egypt; and get on the other side of him.\n\n(EGYPT takes up a commanding position near the hearth-brush.)\n\nDORA (reviewing her forces). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in\nfront.\n\n(LILY does as she is bid.)\n\nL. (seeing he has no chance against the odds). Well, well; but I'm\nreally tired. Go and dance a little, first; and let me think.\n\nDORA. No; you mustn't think. You will be wanting to make us think\nnext; that will be tiresome.\n\nL. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of thinking: and then\nI'll talk as long as you like.\n\nDORA. Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There isn't time; and we\nwant to hear about virtue.\n\nL. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is the first of girls'\nvirtues.\n\nEGYPT. Indeed! And the second?\n\nL. Dressing.\n\nEGYPT. Now, you needn't say that! I mended that tear the first\nthing before breakfast this morning.\n\nL. I cannot otherwise express the ethical principle, Egypt;\nwhether you have mended your gown or not.\n\nDORA. Now don't be tiresome. We really must hear about virtue,\nplease; seriously.\n\nL. Well. I'm telling you about it, as fast as I can.\n\nDORA. What! the first of girls' virtues is dancing?\n\nL. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and not wishing to\ntease, nor hear about virtue.\n\nDORA (to EGYPT). Isn't he cross?\n\nEGYPT. How many balls must we go to in the season, to be perfectly\nvirtuous?\n\nL. As many as you can without losing your color. But I did not say\nyou should wish to go to balls. I said you should be always\nwanting to dance.\n\nEGYPT. So we do; but everybody says it is very wrong.\n\nL. Why, Egypt, I thought--\n\n    \"There was a lady once,\n    That would not be a queen,--that would she not,\n    For all the mud in Egypt.\"\n\nYou were complaining the other day of having to go out a great\ndeal oftener than you liked.\n\nEGYPT. Yes, so I was; but then, it isn't to dance. There's no room\nto dance: it's--(Pausing to consider what it is for).\n\nL. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's no harm in\nthat. Girls ought to like to be seen.\n\nDORA (her eyes flashing). Now, you don't mean that; and you're too\nprovoking; and we won't dance again, for a month.\n\nL. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only\nbanish me to the library; and dance by yourselves; but I don't\nthink Jessie and Lily will agree to that. You like me to see you\ndancing, don't you, Lily?\n\nLILY. Yes, certainly,--when we do it rightly.\n\nL. And besides, Miss Dora, if young ladies really do not want to\nbe seen, they should take care not to let their eyes flash when\nthey dislike what people say: and, more than that, it is all\nnonsense from beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I\ndon't know any more tiresome flower in the borders than your\nespecially \"modest\" snowdrop; which one always has to stoop down\nand take all sorts of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its\npoor little head off, before you can see it; and then, half of it\nis not worth seeing. Girls should be like daisies, nice and white,\nwith an edge of red, if you look close, making the ground bright\nwherever they are, knowing simply and quietly that they do it, and\nare meant to do it and that it would be very wrong if they didn't\ndo it. Not want to be seen, indeed! How long were you in doing up\nyour back hair, this afternoon Jessie?\n\n(JESSIE not immediately answering, DORA comes to her assistance)\n\nDORA. Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess?\n\nJESSIE (putting her finger up). Now, Dorothy, you needn't talk,\nyou know!\n\nL. I know she needn't, Jessie, I shall ask her about those dark\nplaits presently. (DORA looks round to see if there is any way\nopen for retreat) But never mind, it was worth the time, whatever\nit was, and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a\nchignon: but if you don't want it to be seen you had better wear a\ncap.\n\nJESSIE. Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And\nwe all have been thinking, and thinking, all day, and hoping you\nwould tell us things, and now--!\n\nL. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things\ngood for you, and you won't believe me. You might as well have let\nme go to sleep at once, as I wanted to. (Endeavors again to make\nhimself comfortable.)\n\nISABEL. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty!--\nKathleen, come here.\n\nL. (knowing what he has to expect if KATHLEEN comes). Get away,\nIsabel, you're too heavy. (Sitting up.) What have I been saying?\n\nDORA. I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never\nheard anything like the things you've been saying.\n\nL. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it\nis all I want.\n\nEGYPT. Yes, but we don't understand, and you know we don't; and we\nwant to.\n\nL. What did I say first?\n\nDORA. That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.\n\nL. I said nothing of the kind.\n\nJESSIE. \"Always wanting to dance,\" you said.\n\nL. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely\nhappy;--so happy that they don't know what to do with themselves\nfor happiness,--and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect\n\"Louisa,\"\n\n    \"No fountain from a rocky cave\n    E'er tripped with foot so free;\n    She seemed as happy as a wave\n    That dances on the sea.\"\n\nA girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.\n\nVIOLET. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?\n\nL. Yes, Violet and dull sometimes and stupid sometimes, and cross\nsometimes. What must be, must; but it is always either our own\nfault, or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be\nsaid of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and\nweary.\n\nMAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak\nagainst dancing?\n\nL. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as\ngood. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write\nLamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise\nfor them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get\non quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children,\nthough the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one:\n\"Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men\nand old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy.\"\n\n(The children get very serious, but look at each other, as if\npleased.)\n\nMARY. They understand now: but, do you know what you said next?\n\nL. Yes, I was not more than half asleep. I said their second\nvirtue was dressing.\n\nMARY. Well! what did you mean by that?\n\nL. What do YOU mean by dressing?\n\nMARY. Wearing fine clothes.\n\nL. Ah! there's the mistake. _I_ mean wearing plain ones.\n\nMARY. Yes, I daresay I but that's not what girls understand by\ndressing, you know.\n\nL. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying\ndresses, perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures.\nBut when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can\nmake a drawing; and when I hear them say they can dress, I\nunderstand that they can make a dress and--which is quite as\ndifficult--wear one.\n\nDORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all\nwear them--out, before anybody expects it.\n\nEGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn\nflounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!\n\nL. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.)\nYes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of\nUNdressing.\n\nDORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?\n\nL. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully--not finely,\nunless on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully, too.\nAlso, you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to\nteach them how to dress, if they don't know; and to consider every\nill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal\ndisgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as\nbeautifully dressed as birds.\n\n(Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had\ncome from under a shower bath.)\n\nL. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes).\nNow you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were\nmeant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens,\ntoo; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and\ndancing, as we said, of course and--one thing more.\n\nDORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?\n\nL. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.\n\nDORA. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?\n\nL. Cooking.\n\nDORA. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven\nhandmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for\nher!\n\nMARY. And the interpretation? What does \"cooking\" mean?\n\nL. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso,\nand of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means\nthe knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and\nof all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory\nin meats, it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and\nwatchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance, it\nmeans the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of\nmodern chemists; it means much tasting, and no wasting, it means\nEnglish thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and\nit means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always\n\"ladies\"--\"loaf-givers;\" and, as you are to see, imperatively,\nthat everybody has something pretty to put on,--so you are to see,\nyet more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.\n\n(Another pause, and long drawn breath.)\n\nDORA (slowly recovering herself) to EGYPT. We had better have let\nhim go to sleep, I think, after all!\n\nL. You had better let the younger ones go to sleep now: for I\nhaven't half done.\n\nISABEL (panic-struck). Oh! please, please! just one quarter of an\nhour.\n\nL. No, Isabel, I cannot say what I've got to say in a quarter of\nan hour; and it is too hard for you, besides:--you would be lying\nawake, and trying to make it out, half the night. That will never\ndo.\n\nISABEL. Oh, please!\n\nL. It would please me exceedingly, mousie: but there are times\nwhen we must both be displeased; more's the pity. Lily may stay\nfor half an hour, if she likes.\n\nLILY. I can't, because Isey never goes to sleep, if she is waiting\nfor me to come.\n\nISABEL. Oh, yes, Lily, I'll go to sleep to-night. I will, indeed.\n\nLILY. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes! (To\nL.) You'll tell me something of what you we been saying, to-\nmorrow, won't you?\n\nL. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's only in Miss\nEdgeworth's novels that one can do right, and have one's cake and\nsugar afterwards as well (not that I consider the dilemma, to-\nnight, so grave).\n\n(LILY, sighing, takes ISABEL'S hand.)\n\nYes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome of it, so, than\nif you were to hear all the talks that eer were talked, and all\nthe stories that ever were told. Good-night.\n\n(The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory closes\non LILY, ISABEL, FLORRIE, and other diminutive and submissive\nvictims.)\n\nJESSIE (after a pause). Why, I thought you were so fond of Miss\nEdgeworth.\n\nL. So I am, and so you ought all to be. I can read her over and\nover again, without ever tiring; there's no one whose every page\nis so full, and so delightful, no one who brings you into the\ncompany of pleasanter or wiser people; no one who tells you more\ntruly how to do right. And it is very nice, in the midst of a wild\nworld, to have the very ideal of poetical justice done always to\none's hand:--to have everybody found out, who tells lies; and\neverybody decorated with a red riband, who doesn't; and to see the\ngood Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, receiving a grand\novation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the purpose; and\npoor, dear, little Rosamond, who chooses purple jars instead of\nnew shoes, left at last without either her shoes or her bottle.\nBut it isn't life: and, in the way children might easily\nunderstand it, it isn't morals.\n\nJESSIE. How do you mean we might understand it?\n\nL. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be\ndone mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an\ninjustice to her to say that: her heroines always do right simply\nfor its own sake, as they should; and her examples of conduct and\nmotive are wholly admirable. But her representation of events is\nfalse and misleading. Her good characters never are brought into\nthe deadly trial of goodness,--the doing right, and suffering for\nit, quite finally. And that is life, as God arranges it. \"Taking\nup one's cross\" does not at all mean having ovations at dinner\nparties, and being put over everybody else's head.\n\nDORA. But what does it mean then? That is just what we couldn't\nunderstand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing\nourselves, yesterday.\n\nL. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you\nsee to be the straight one; carrying whatever you find is given\nyou to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making\nfaces, or calling people to come and look at you. Above all, you\nare neither to load, nor unload, yourself; nor cut your cross to\nyour own liking. Some people think it would be better for them to\nhave it large; and many, that they could carry it much faster if\nit were small; and even those who like it largest are usually very\nparticular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony.\nBut all that you have really to do is to keep your back as\nstraight as you can; and not think about what is upon it--above\nall, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential\nmeaning of \"virtue\" is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may\nlaugh, children, but it is. You know I was to tell you about the\nwords that began with V. Sibyl, what does \"virtue\" mean literally?\n\nSIBYL. Does it mean courage?\n\nL. Yes; but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the\nnerve; vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in\nMax Muller, you will find really means \"nerve,\" and from it come\n\"vis,\" and \"vir,\" and \"virgin\" (through vireo), and the connected\nword \"virga\"--\"a rod;\"--the green rod, or springing bough of a\ntree, being the type of perfect human strength, both in the use\nof. it in the Mosaic story, when it becomes a serpent, or strikes\nthe rock; or when Aaron's bears its almonds; and in the\nmetaphorical expressions, the \"Rod out of the stem of Jesse,\" and\nthe \"Man whose name is the Branch,\" and so on. And the essential\nidea of real virtue is that of a vital human strength, which\ninstinctively, constantly, and without motive, does what is right.\nYou must train men to this by habit, as you would the branch of a\ntree; and give them instincts and manners (or morals) of purity,\njustice, kindness, and courage. Once rightly trained, they act as\nthey should, irrespectively of all motive, of fear, or of reward.\nIt is the blackest sign of putrescence in a national religion,\nwhen men speak as if it were the only safeguard of conduct; and\nassume that, but for the fear of being burned, or for the hope of\nbeing rewarded, everybody would pass their lives in lying,\nstealing, and murdering. I think quite one of the notablest\nhistorical events of this century (perhaps the very notablest),\nwas that council of clergymen, horror-struck at the idea of any\ndiminution in our dread of hell, at which the last of English\nclergymen whom one would have expected to see in such a function,\nrose as the devil's advocate; to tell us how impossible it was we\ncould get on without him.\n\nVIOLET (after a pause). But, surely, if people weren't afraid--\n(hesitates again).\n\nL. They should be afraid of doing wrong, and of that only, my\ndear. Otherwise, if they only don't do wrong for fear of being\npunished, they HAVE done wrong in their hearts already.\n\nVIOLET. Well, but surely, at least one ought to be afraid of\ndispleasing God; and one's desire to please Him should be one's\nfirst motive?\n\nL. He never would be pleased with us, if it were, my dear. When a\nfather sends his son out into the world--suppose as an apprentice\n--fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, \"Father, I\ncould have robbed the till to-day; but I didn't, because I thought\nyou wouldn't like it.\" Do you think the father would be\nparticularly pleased?\n\n(VIOLET is silent.)\n\nHe would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, \"My boy,\nthough you had no father, you must not rob tills\"? And nothing is\never done so as really to please our Great Father, unless we would\nalso have done it, though we had had no Father to know of it.\n\nVIOLET (after long pause). But, then, what continual threatenings,\nand promises of reward there are!\n\nL. And how vain both! with the Jews, and with all of us. But the\nfact is, that the threat and promise are simply statements of the\nDivine law, and of its consequences. The fact is truly told you,--\nmake what use you may of it: and as collateral warning, or\nencouragement, or comfort, the knowledge of future consequences\nmay often be helpful to us; but helpful chiefly to the better\nstate when we can act without reference to them. And there's no\nmeasuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward\non the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the\nmonastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and\nambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their\nfollies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity\nof pride, to begin with, in what is called \"giving one's self to\nGod.\" As if one had ever belonged to anybody else!\n\nDORA. But, surely, great good has come out of the monastic system\n--our books,--our sciences--all saved by the monks?\n\nL. Saved from what, my dear? From the abyss of misery and ruin\nwhich that false Christianity allowed the whole active world to\nlive in. When it had become the principal amusement, and the most\nadmired art of Christian men, to cut one another's throats, and\nburn one another's towns; of course the few feeble or reasonable\npersons left, who desired quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got\ninto cloisters; and the gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and\nwomen shut themselves up, precisely where they could be of least\nuse. They are very fine things, for us painters, now--the towers\nand white arches upon the tops of the rocks; always in places\nwhere it takes a day's climbing to get at them; but the intense\ntragi-comedy of the thing, when one thinks of it, is unspeakable.\nAll the good people of the world getting themselves hung up out of\nthe way of mischief, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie;--poor little lambs,\nas it were, dangling there for the sign of the Golden Fleece; or\nlike Socrates in his basket in the \"Clouds\"! (I must read you that\nbit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children,\nI am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am,\nit is in their favor. I have always had a strong leaning that way;\nand have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and\nhappily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with\nCarthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and\nmourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the\nwonder is always to me, not how much, but how little, the monks\nhave, on the whole, done, with all that leisure, and all that\ngood-will! What nonsense monks characteristically wrote;--what\nlittle progress they made in the sciences to which they devoted\nthemselves as a duty,--medicine especially;--and, last and worst,\nwhat depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another, and\nthe population round them, sink into; without either doubting\ntheir system, or reforming it!\n\n(Seeing questions rising to lips.) Hold your little tongues,\nchildren; it's very late, and you'll make me forget what I've to\nsay. Fancy yourselves in pews, for five minutes. There's one point\nof possible good in the conventual system, which is always\nattractive to young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous one;--\n0the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit\nof meditation on the \"things above,\" or things of the next world.\nNow it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on\nwhatever appears to them most desirable and lovely in a possible\nfuture, will not only pass their time pleasantly, but will even\nacquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of manner and\nfeature, which will give them an air of peculiar sanctity in the\neyes of others. Whatever real or apparent good there may be in\nthis result, I want you to observe, children, that we have no real\nauthority for the reveries to which it is owing. We are told\nnothing distinctly of the heavenly world; except that it will be\nfree from sorrow, and pure from sin. What is said of pearl gates,\ngolden floors, and the like, is accepted as merely figurative by\nreligious enthusiasts themselves; and whatever they pass their\ntime in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, of\ntheir intercourse, or of the appearance and employment of the\nheavenly powers, is entirely the product of their own imagination;\nand as completely and distinctly a work of fiction, or romantic\ninvention, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the romance is\nfounded on religious theory or doctrine;--that no disagreeable or\nwicked persons are admitted into the story;--and that the inventor\nfervently hopes that some portion of it may hereafter come true,\ndoes not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or\nenjoyment.\n\nNow, whatever indulgence may be granted to amiable people for\npleasing themselves in this innocent way, it is beyond question,\nthat to seclude themselves from the rough duties of life, merely\nto write religious romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream\nthem, without taking so much trouble as is implied in writing,\nought not to be received as an act of heroic virtue. But, observe,\neven in admitting thus much, I have assumed that the fancies are\njust and beautiful, though fictitious. Now, what right have any of\nus to assume that our own fancies will assuredly be either the one\nor the other? That they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no\nreal proof of its not being wasted time to form them: and we may\nsurely be led somewhat to distrust our judgment of them by\nobserving what ignoble imaginations have sometimes sufficiently,\nor even enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others. The\nprincipal source of the spirit of religious contemplation is the\nEast; now I have here in my hand a Byzantine image of Christ,\nwhich, if you will look at it seriously, may, I think, at once and\nforever render you cautious in the indulgence of a merely\ncontemplative habit of mind. Observe, it is the fashion to look at\nsuch a thing only as a piece of barbarous art; that is the\nsmallest part of its interest. What I want you to see, is the\nbaseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in\nwhich such a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a\nfigure, with two small round black beads for eyes; a gilded face,\ndeep cut into horrible wrinkles; an open gash for a mouth, and a\ndistorted skeleton for a body, wrapped about, to make it fine,\nwith striped enamel of blue and gold;--that such a figure, I say,\nshould ever have been thought helpful towards the conception of a\nRedeeming Deity, may make you, I think, very doubtful, even of the\nDivine approval,--much more of the Divine inspiration,--of\nreligious reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that your own\nidea of Christ would be something very different from this; but in\nwhat does the difference consist? Not in any more divine authority\nin your imagination; but in the intellectual work of six\nintervening centuries; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has\nrefined this crude conception for you, and filled you, partly with\nan innate sensation, partly with an acquired knowledge, of higher\nforms,--which render this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you,\nas it was pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite your\nfancy; but your fancy is of no more authority than his was: and a\npoint of national art-skill is quite conceivable, in which the\nbest we can do now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers\nof the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine crucifix is\nto you.\n\nMARY. But surely, Angelico will always retain his power over\neverybody?\n\nL. Yes, I should think, always; as the gentle words of a child\nwill: but you would be much surprised, Mary, if you thoroughly\ntook the pains to analyze, and had the perfect means of analyzing,\nthat power of Angelico,--to discover its real sources. Of course\nit is natural, at first, to attribute it to the pure religious\nfervor by which he was inspired; but do you suppose Angelico was\nreally the only monk, in all the Christian world of the middle\nages, who labored, in art, with a sincere religious enthusiasm?\n\nMARY. No, certainly not.\n\nL. Anything more frightful, more destructive of all religious\nfaith whatever, than such a supposition, could not be. And yet,\nwhat other monk ever produced such work? I have myself examined\ncarefully upwards of two thousand illuminated missals, with\nespecial view to the discovery of any evidence of a similar result\nupon the art, from the monkish devotion; and utterly in vain.\n\nMARY. But then, was not Fra Angelico a man of entirely separate\nand exalted genius?\n\nL. Unquestionably; and granting him to be that, the peculiar\nphenomenon in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its\nweakness. The effect of \"inspiration,\" had it been real, on a man\nof consummate genius, should have been, one would have thought, to\nmake everything that he did faultless and strong, no less than\nlovely. But of all men, deserving to be called \"great,\" Fra\nAngelico permits to himself the least pardonable faults, and the\nmost palpable follies. There is evidently within him a sense of\ngrace, and power of invention, as great as Ghiberti's:--we are in\nthe habit of attributing those high qualities to his religious\nenthusiasm; but, if they were produced by that enthusiasm in him,\nthey ought to be produced by the same feelings in others; and we\nsee they are not. Whereas, comparing him with contemporary great\nartists, of equal grace and invention, one peculiar character\nremains notable in him,--which, logically, we ought therefore to\nattribute to the religious fervor;--and that distinctive character\nis, the contented indulgence of his own weaknesses, and\nperseverance in his own ignorances.\n\nMARY. But that's dreadful! And what is the source of the peculiar\ncharm which we all feel in his work?\n\nL. There are many sources of it, Mary; united and seeming like\none. You would never feel that charm but in the work of an\nentirely good man; be sure of that; but the goodness is only the\nrecipient and modifying element, not the creative one. Consider\ncarefully what delights you in any original picture of Angelico's.\nYou will find, for one minor thing, an exquisite variety and\nbrightness of ornamental work. That is not Angelico's inspiration.\nIt is the final result of the labor and thought of millions of\nartists, of all nations; from the earliest Egyptian potters\ndownwards--Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and\nNorthmen--all joining in the toil; and consummating it in\nFlorence, in that century, with such embroidery of robe and\ninlaying of armor as had never been seen till then; nor probably,\never will be seen more. Angelico merely takes his share of this\ninheritance, and applies it in the tenderest way to subjects which\nare peculiarly acceptant of it. But the inspiration, if it exist\nanywhere, flashes on the knight's shield quite as radiantly as on\nthe monk's picture. Examining farther into the sources of your\nemotion in the Angelico work, you will find much of the impression\nof sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture,\nconsummating itself in the floating, flying, and above all, in the\ndancing groups. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a\npeculiarly tender use of systems of grouping which had been long\nbefore developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna; and the real root\nof it all is simply--What do you think, children? The beautiful\ndancing of the Florentine maidens!\n\nDORA (indignant again). Now, I wonder what next! Why not say it\nall depended on Herodias' daughter, at once?\n\nL. Yes; it is certainly a great argument against singing that\nthere were once sirens.\n\nDORA. Well, it may be all very fine and philosophical, but\nshouldn't I just like to read you the end of the second volume of\n\"Modern Painters\"!\n\nL. My dear, do you think any teacher could be worth your listening\nto, or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and\naltered his mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and\nforty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it\ngoes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift\none, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume\nto lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra\nAngelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be\nstrengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable\nyou to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you\nlove, else you might come to love both alike; or even the\nweaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking Overbeck\nand Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been\nleaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things,\nin to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that\nI do not deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages\nresulting, in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie,\nand from the other practices of saints and anchorites. The\nevidence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected,\nmuch less dispassionately examined: but assuredly, there is in\nthat direction a probability, and more than a probability, of\ndangerous error, while there is none whatever in the practice of\nan active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attaining a\nhigher religious position, which induces us to encounter, for its\nexalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I\nsaid, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest\nusefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest\nplace in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the\nleast likely to receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable,\n\"Friend, go up higher.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 8.\n\nCRYSTAL CAPRICE\n\n\nFormal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of\nminerals.\n\nL. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might\nbe seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by\nvisible opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which\nthe variety, however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel,\nourselves, for many and slight causes,--much more, one should\nthink, may crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue\nabout it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human\nways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no\nantagonistic force; but merely to the variable humor and caprice\nof the crystals themselves: and I have asked you all to come into\nthe schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the\ncrystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine\naudience. (Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said\naudience.) Now, you need not pretend that it will not interest\nyou; why should it not? It is true that we men are never\ncapricious; but that only makes us the more dull and disagreeable.\nYou, who are crystalline in brightness, as well as in caprice,\ncharm infinitely, by infinitude of change. (Audible murmurs of\n\"Worse and worse!\" \"As if we could be got over that way!\" Etc. The\nLECTURER, however, observing the expression of the features to be\nmore complacent, proceeds.) And the most curious mimicry, if not\nof your changes of fashion, at least of your various modes (in\nhealthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the\ncrystals of different countries. With a little experience, it is\nquite possible to say at a glance, in what districts certain\ncrystals have been found; and although, if we had knowledge\nextended and accurate enough, we might of course ascertain the\nlaws and circumstances which have necessarily produced the form\npeculiar to each locality, this would be just as true of the\nfancies of the human mind. If we could know the exact\ncircumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to\nus only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only\ncaprice of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on\nthe whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of\nBerne should wear their caps in the shape of butterflies; and the\npeasant girls of Munich theirs in the shape of shells, than to say\nwhy the rock-crystals of Dauphine should all have their summits of\nthe shape of lip-pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard\nare symmetrical, or why the fluor of Chamouni is rose-colored, and\nin octahedrons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, and in\ncubes. Still farther removed is the hope, at present, of\naccounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and\nconstruction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single\nmineral, quart;--variations upon a single theme. It has many\nforms; but see what it will make out of this ONE, the six-sided\nprism. For shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its\n\"column,\" and the pyramid at the extremities its \"cap.\" Now, here,\nfirst you have a straight column as long and thin as a stalk of\nasparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here you have a\nshort thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at\nthe ends; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no\ncolumn at all between them! Then here is a crystal with its column\nfat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; and here is one\nstalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a\nslender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little\ncaps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column\nbuilt of columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half-way\nto their points. And in both these last, the little crystals are\nset anyhow, and build the large one in a disorderly way; but here\nis a crystal made of columns and truncated caps, set in regular\nterraces all the way up.\n\nMARY. But are not these groups of crystals, rather than one\ncrystal?\n\nL. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal?\n\nDORA (audibly aside, to MARY, who is brought to pause). You know\nyou are never expected to answer, Mary.\n\nL. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you mean by a group of\npeople?\n\nMARY. Three or four together, or a good many together, like the\ncaps in these crystals.\n\nL. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the\nshape of one person?\n\n(MARY still at pause.)\n\nISABEL. No, because they can't; but you know the crystals can; so\nwhy shouldn't they?\n\nL. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even\noften. Look here, Isabel.\n\nISABEL. What a nasty ugly thing!\n\nL. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful\ncrystals; they are a little gray and cold in color, but most of\nthem are clear.\n\nISABEL. But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!\n\nL. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are\nnaturally orderly. Some little girls' rooms are naturally orderly,\nI suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they\ncry out so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.\n\nISABEL. Oh! but how come they to be like that?\n\nL. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking,\nas if they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It is\nwonderful--as we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the\nsupremely wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruinous or\nwasteful, or deathful! I look at this wild piece of\ncrystallization with endless astonishment.\n\nMARY. Where does it come from?\n\nL. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is that\nit should be in a vein of fine quartz. If it were in a mouldering\nrock, it would be natural enough; but in the midst of so fine\nsubstance, here are the crystals tossed in a heap; some large,\nmyriads small (almost as small as dust), tumbling over each other\nlike a terrified crowd, and glued together by the sides, and\nedges, and backs, and heads; some warped, and some pushed out and\nin, and all spoiled, and each spoiling the rest.\n\nMARY. And how flat they all are!\n\nL. Yes; that's the fashion at the Tete Noire.\n\nMARY. But surely this is ruin, not caprice?\n\nL. I believe it is in great part misfortune; and we will examine\nthese crystal troubles in next lecture. But if you want to see the\ngracefullest and happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you\nmust go to the Hartz; not that I ever mean to go there myself, for\nI want to retain the romantic feeling about the name; and I have\ndone myself some harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy\nform of the Brocken from the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the\nmountains be picturesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as\nI am told) teach the crystals in them, are incomparably pretty.\nThey work chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish-colored,\ncarbonate of lime; which comes out of a gray limestone. The\ngoblins take the greatest possible care of its education, and see\nthat nothing happens to it to hurt its temper; and when it may be\nsupposed to have arrived at the crisis which is to a well brought\nup mineral, what presentation at court is to a young lady--after\nwhich it is expected to set fashions--there's no end to its pretty\nways of behaving. First it will make itself into pointed darts as\nfine as hoarfrost; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as\nsilk; here into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver;\nas if for the gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful\nlittle plates, for them to eat off; presently it is in towers\nwhich they might be imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells,\nwhere they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever\nhear of them more; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn; here,\nsome in drifts, like snow; here, some in rays, like stars: and,\nthough these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the\nmineral takes in other places, they are all taken here with such a\ngrace that you recognize the high caste and breeding of the\ncrystals wherever you meet them, and know at once they are Hartz-\nborn.\n\nOf course, such fine things as these are only done by crystals\nwhich are perfectly good, and good-humored; and of course, also,\nthere are ill-humored crystals who torment each other, and annoy\nquieter crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious war.\nHere (for once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tormenting a\npeaceable octahedron of fluor, in mere caprice. I looked at it the\nother night so long, and so wonderingly, just before putting my\ncandle out, that I fell into another strange dream. But you don't\ncare about dreams.\n\nDORA. No; we didn't, yesterday; but you know we are made up of\ncaprice; so we do, to-day: and you must tell it us directly.\n\nL. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still much in my mind;\nand then, I had been looking over these Hartz things for you, and\nthinking of the sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in\nthem with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern\narchitecture. So, when I fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and\nSt. Barbara talking together.\n\nDORA. But what had St. Barbara to do with it?\n\nL. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good\narchitects; not St. Thomas, whatever the old builders thought. It\nmight be very fine, according to the monks' notions, in St.\nThomas, to give all his employer's money away to the poor: but\nbreaches of contract are bad foundations; and I believe, it was\nnot he, but St. Barbara, who overlooked the work in all the\nbuildings you and I care about. However that may be, it was\ncertainly she whom I saw in my dream with Neith. Neith was sitting\nweaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her shuttle\nslowly; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff\nlittle gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with\nembroidery that it dazzled me whenever she moved; the train of it\nwas just like a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full\nof corners, and so many-colored and bright. Her hair fell over her\nshoulders in long, delicate waves, from under a little three\npinnacled crown, like a tower. She was asking Neith about the laws\nof architecture in Egypt and Greece; and when Neith told her the\nmeasures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said she thought they would\nhave been better three-cornered and when Neith told her the\nmeasures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought\nto have had two transepts. But she was pleased when Neith told her\nof the temple of the dew, and of the Caryan maidens bearing its\nfrieze: and then she thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear\nwhat sort of temples she was building herself, in the French\nvalleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping,\njust as one of you might to an old lady: and certainly she talked\nin the sweetest way in the world to Neith; and explained to her\nall about crockets and pinnacles: and Neith sat, looking very\ngrave; and always graver as St. Barbara went on; till at last, I'm\nsorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little.\n\nMARY (very grave herself). \"St. Barbara\"?\n\nL. Yes, Mary. Why shouldn't she? It was very tiresome of Neith to\nsit looking like that.\n\nMAY. But, then, St. Barbara was a saint!\n\nL. What's that, May?\n\nMAY. A saint! A saint is--I am sure you know!\n\nL. If I did, it would not make me sure that you knew too, May: but\nI don't.\n\nVIOLET (expressing the incredulity of the audience). Oh,--sir!\n\nL. That is to say, I know that people are called saints who are\nsupposed to be better than others: but I don't know how much\nbetter they must be, in order to be saints; nor how nearly anybody\nmay be a saint, and yet not be quite one; nor whether everybody\nwho is called a saint was one; nor whether everybody who isn't\ncalled a saint, isn't one.\n\n(General silence; the audience feeling themselves on the verge of\nthe Infinities--and a little shocked--and much puzzled by so many\nquestions at once.)\n\nL. Besides, did you never hear that verse about being--called to\nbe \"saints\"?\n\nMAY (repeats Rom. i. 7).\n\nL. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called to be that? People\nin Rome only?\n\nMAY. Everybody, I suppose, whom God loves.\n\nL. What! little girls as well as other people?\n\nMAY. All grown-up people, I mean.\n\nL. Why not little girls? Are they wickeder when they are little?\n\nMAY. Oh, I hope not.\n\nL Why not little girls, then? (Pause)\n\nLILY. Because, you know we can't be worth anything if we're ever\nso good,--I mean, if we try to be ever so good and we can't do\ndifficult things--like saints.\n\nL I am afraid, my dear that old people are not more able or\nwilling for their difficulties than you children are for yours.\nAll I can say is, that if ever I see any of you, when you are\nseven or eight and twenty, knitting your brows over any work you\nwant to do or to understand as I saw you Lily knitting your brows\nover your slate this morning I should think you very noble women.\nBut--to come back to my dream--St Barbara did lose her temper a\nlittle, and I was not surprised. For you can't think how provoking\nNeith looked, sitting there just like a statue of sandstone, only\ngoing on weaving like a machine and never quickening the cast of\nher shuttle, while St Barbara was telling her so eagerly all about\nthe most beautiful things and chattering away, as fast as bells\nring on Christmas Eve, till she saw that Neilh didn't care, and\nthen St Barbara got as red as a rose, and stopped just in time,--\nor I think she would really have said something naughty.\n\nISABEL Oh please, but didn't Neith say anything then?\n\nL. Yes. She said, quite quietly, \"It may be very pretty, my love;\nbut it is all nonsense.\"\n\nISABEL. Oh dear, oh dear; and then?\n\nL. Well; then I was a little angry myself, and hoped St. Barbara\nwould be quite angry; but she wasn't. She bit her lips first; and\nthen gave a great sigh--such a wild, sweet sigh--and then she\nknelt down and hid her face on Neith's knees. Then Neith smiled a\nlittle, and was moved.\n\nISABEL. Oh, I am so glad!\n\nL. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with a flower of white\nlotus; and St. Barbara sobbed once or twice, and then said: \"If\nyou only could see how beautiful it is, and how much it makes\npeople feel what is good and lovely; and if you could only hear\nthe children singing in the Lady chapels!\" And Neith smiled,--but\nstill sadly,--and said, \"How do you know what I have seen, or\nheard, my love? Do you think all those vaults and towers of yours\nhave been built without me? There was not a pillar in your\nGiotto's Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by my\nspear-shaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and flame work which has\nset your little heart on fire, is all vanity; and you will see\nwhat it will come to, and that soon; and none will grieve for it\nmore than I. And then every one will disbelieve your pretty\nsymbols and types. Men must be spoken simply to, my dear, if you\nwould guide them kindly, and long.\" But St. Barbara answered,\nthat, \"Indeed she thought every one liked her work,\" and that \"the\npeople of different towns were as eager about their cathedral\ntowers as about their privileges or their markets;\" and then she\nasked Neith to come and build something with her, wall against\ntower; and \"see whether the people will be as much pleased with\nyour building as with mine.\" But Neith answered, \"I will not\ncontend with you, my dear. I strive not with those who love me;\nand for those who hate me, it is not well to strive with me, as\nweaver Arachne knows. And remember, child, that nothing is ever\ndone beautifully, which is done in rivalship; nor nobly, which is\ndone in pride.\"\n\nThen St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said she was very\nsorry she had been so foolish; and kissed Neith; and stood\nthinking a minute: and then her eyes got bright again, and she\nsaid, she would go directly and build a chapel with five windows\nin it; four for the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility,\nin the middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly laughed\nquite out, I thought; certainly her beautiful lips lost all their\nsternness for an instant; then she said, \"Well, love, build it,\nbut do not put so many colors into your windows as you usually do;\nelse no one will be able to see to read, inside: and when it is\nbuilt, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an\narchbishop.\" St. Barbara started a little, I thought, and turned\nas if to say something; but changed her mind, and gathered up her\ntrain, and went out. And Neith bent herself again to her loom, in\nwhich she was weaving a web of strange dark colors, I thought; but\nperhaps it was only after the glittering of St. Barbara's\nembroidered train: and I tried to make out the figures in Neith's\nweb, and confused myself among them, as one always does in dreams;\nand then the dream changed altogether, and I found myself, all at\nonce, among a crowd of little Gothic and Egyptian spirits, who\nwere quarreling: at least the Gothic ones were trying to quarrel;\nfor the Egyptian ones only sat with their hands on their knees,\nand their aprons sticking out very stiffly; and stared. And after\na while I began to understand what the matter was. It seemed that\nsome of the troublesome building imps, who meddle and make\ncontinually, even in the best Gothic work, had been listening to\nSt. Barbara's talk with Neith; and had made up their minds that\nNeith had no workpeople who could build against them. They were\nbut dull imps, as you may fancy by their thinking that; and never\nhad done much, except disturbing the great Gothic building angels\nat their work, and playing tricks to each other; indeed, of late\nthey had been living years and years, like bats, up under the\ncornices of Strasbourg and Cologne cathedrals, with nothing to do\nbut to make mouths at the people below. However, they thought they\nknew everything about tower building; and those who had heard what\nNeith said, told the rest; and they all flew down directly,\nchattering in German, like jackdaws, to show Neith's people what\nthey could do. And they had found some of Neith's old workpeople\nsomewhere near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on their\nknees; and abused them heartily: and Neith's people did not mind\nat first, but, after a while, they seemed to get tired of the\nnoise; and one or two rose up slowly, and laid hold of their\nmeasuring rods, and said, \"If St. Barbara's people liked to build\nwith them, tower against pyramid, they would show them how to lay\nstones.\"\n\nThen the Gothic little spirits threw a great many double\nsomersaults for joy; and put the tips of their tongues out slyly\nto each other, on one side; and I heard the Egyptians say, \"they\nmust be some new kind of frog--they didn't think there was much\nbuilding in them.\" However, the stiff old workers took their rods,\nas I said, and measured out a square space of sand; but as soon as\nthe German spirits saw that, they declared they wanted exactly\nthat bit of ground to build on, themselves. Then the Egyptian\nbuilders offered to go farther off and the German ones said, \"Ja\nwohl.\" But as soon as the Egyptians had measured out another\nsquare, the little Germans said they must have some of that too.\nThen Neith's people laughed; and said, \"they might take as much as\nthey liked, but they would not move the plan of their pyramid\nagain.\" Then the little Germans took three pieces, and began to\nbuild three spires directly; one large, and two little. And when\nthe Egyptians saw they had fairly begun, they laid their\nfoundation all round, of large square stones: and began to build,\nso steadily that they had like to have swallowed up the three\nlittle German spires. So when the Gothic spirits saw that, they\nbuilt their spires leaning, like the tower of Pisa, that they\nmight stick out at the side of the pyramid. And Neith's people\nstared at them; and thought it very clever, but very wrong; and on\nthey went, in their own way, and said nothing. Then the little\nGothic spirits were terribly provoked because they could not spoil\nthe shape of the pyramid; and they sat down all along the ledges\nof it to make faces; but that did no good. Then they ran to the\ncorners, and put their elbows on their knees, and stuck themselves\nout as far as they could, and made more faces; but that did no\ngood, neither. Then they looked up to the sky, and opened their\nmouths wide, and gobbled, and said it was too hot for work, and\nwondered when it would rain; but that did no good, neither. And\nall the while the Egyptian spirits were laying step above step\npatiently. But when the Gothic ones looked, and saw how big they\nhad got, they said, \"Ach, Himmel!\" and flew down in a great black\ncluster to the bottom; and swept out a level spot in the sand with\ntheir wings, in no time, and began building a tower straight up,\nas fast as they could. And the Egyptians stood still again to\nstare at them; for the Gothic spirits had got quite into a\npassion, and were really working very wonderfully. They cut the\nsandstone into strips as fine as reeds; and put one reed on the\ntop of another, so that you could not see where they fitted: and\nthey twisted them in and out like basket work, and knotted them\ninto likenesses of ugly faces, and of strange beasts biting each\nother; and up they went, and up still, and they made spiral\nstaircases at the corners, for the loaded workers to come up by\n(for I saw they were but weak imps, and could not fly with stones\non their backs), and then they made traceried galleries for them\nto run round by; and so up again; with finer and finer work, till\nthe Egyptians wondered whether they meant the thing for a tower or\na pillar: and I heard them saying to one another, \"It was nearly\nas pretty as lotus stalks; and if it were not for the ugly faces,\nthere would be a fine temple, if they were going to build it all\nwith pillars as big as that!\" But in a minute afterwards,--just as\nthe Gothic spirits had carried their work as high as the upper\ncourse, but three or four, of the pyramid--the Egyptians called\nout to them to \"mind what they were about, for the sand was\nrunning away from under one of their tower corners.\" But it was\ntoo late to mind what they were about; for, in another instant,\nthe whole tower sloped aside; and the Gothic imps rose out of it\nlike a flight of puffins, in a single cloud; but screaming worse\nthan any puffins you ever heard: and down came the tower, all in a\npiece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the flank of\nthe pyramid; against which it snapped short off. And of course\nthat waked me.\n\nMARY. What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have\ntold us about Gothic architecture!\n\nL. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you\nknow that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or\nabolished more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies.\nBesides, even in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes\nof this kind. I have stood too often, mourning, by the grand\nfragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt\ninto me. Still, you must have seen, surely, that these imps were\nof the Flamboyant school; or, at least, of the German schools\ncorrespondent with it in extravagance.\n\nMARY. But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all\nthis?\n\nL. Here; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it\nis very small. But, you see, here is the pyramid, built of great\nsquare stones of fluor spar, straight up; and here are the three\nlittle pinnacles of mischievous quartz, which have set themselves,\nat the same time, on the same foundation; only they lean like the\ntower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at the side: and here is one\ngreat spire of quartz which seems as if it had been meant to stand\nstraight up, a little way off; and then had fallen down against\nthe pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away. In reality, it has\ncrystallized horizontally, and terminated imperfectly: but, then,\nby what caprice does one crystal form horizontally, when all the\nrest stand upright? But this is nothing to the phantasies of\nfluor, and quartz, and some other such companions, when they get\nleave to do anything they like. I could show you fifty specimens,\nabout every one of which you might fancy a new fairy tale. Not\nthat, in truth, any crystals get leave to do quite what they like;\nand many of them are sadly tried, and have little time for\ncaprices--poor things!\n\nMARY. I thought they always looked as if they were either in play\nor in mischief! What trials have they?\n\nL. Trials much like our own. Sickness, and starvation; fevers, and\nagues, and palsy; oppression; and old age, and the necessity of\npassing away in their time, like all else. If there's any pity in\nyou, you must come to-morrow, and take some part in these crystal\ngriefs.\n\nDORA. I am sure we shall cry till our eyes are red. L. Ah, you may\nlaugh, Dora: but I've been made grave, not once, nor twice, to see\nthat even crystals \"cannot choose but be old\" at last. It may be\nbut a shallow proverb of the Justice's; but it is a shrewdly wide\none.\n\nDORA (pensive for once). I suppose it is very dreadful to be old!\nBut then (brightening again), what should we do without our dear\nold friends, and our nice old lecturers?\n\nL. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little as one I know\nof;--\n\nDORA. And if they all meant as little what they say, would they\nnot deserve it? But we'll come--we'll come, and cry.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 9.\n\nCRYSTAL SORROWS\n\n\nWorking Lecture in Schoolroom.\n\nL. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if crystals might\nlive, and play, and quarrel, and behave ill or well, according to\ntheir characters, without interruption from anything else. But so\nfar from this being so, nearly all crystals, whatever their\ncharacters, have to live a hard life of it, and meet with many\nmisfortunes. If we could see far enough, we should find, indeed,\nthat, at the root, all their vices were misfortunes: but to-day I\nwant you to see what sort of troubles the best crystals have to go\nthrough, occasionally, by no fault of their own.\n\nThis black thing, which is one of the prettiest of the very few\npretty black things in the world, is called \"Tourmaline.\" It may\nbe transparent, and green, or red, as well as black; and then no\nstone can be prettier (only, all the light that gets into it, I\nbelieve, comes out a good deal the worse; and is not itself again\nfor a long while). But this is the commonest state of it,--opaque,\nand as black as jet.\n\nMARY. What does \"Tourmaline\" mean?\n\nL. They say it is Ceylanese, and I don't know Ceylanese, but we\nmay always be thankful for a graceful word, whatever it means\n\nMARY. And what is it made of?\n\nL. A little of everything there's always flint and clay, and\nmagnesia in it, and the black is iron, according to its fancy, and\nthere's boracic acid if you know what that is and if you don't, I\ncannot tell you today, and it doesn't signify and there's potash,\nand soda, and, on the whole, the chemistry of it is more like a\nmediaeval doctor's prescription, than the making of a respectable\nmineral but it may, perhaps, be owing to the strange complexity of\nits make, that it has a notable habit which makes it, to me one of\nthe most interesting of minerals. You see these two crystals are\nbroken right across, in many places, just as if they had been\nshafts of black marble fallen from a ruinous temple, and here they\nlie, imbedded in white quartz, fragment succeeding fragment\nkeeping the line of the original crystal, while the quartz fills\nup the intervening spaces Now tourmaline has a trick of doing\nthis, more than any other mineral I know here is another bit which\nI picked up on the glacier of Macugnaga; it is broken, like a\npillar built of very flat broad stones, into about thirty joints,\nand all these are heaved and warped away from each other sideways,\nalmost into a line of steps, and then all is tilled up with quartz\npaste. And here, lastly is a green Indian piece, in which the\npillar is first disjointed, and then wrung round into the shape of\nan S.\n\nMARY. How CAN this have been done?\n\nL. There are a thousand ways in which it may have been done, the\ndifficulty is not to account for the doing of it, but for the\nshowing of it in some crystals and not in others You never by any\nchance get a quartz crystal broken or twisted in this way. If it\nbreak or twist at all which it does sometimes, like the spire of\nDijon, it is by its own will or fault, it never seems to have been\npassively crushed But, for the forces which cause this passive\nruin of the tourmaline,--here is a stone which will show you\nmultitudes of them in operation at once It is known as \"biecciated\nagate,\" beautiful, as you see, and highly valued as a pebble yet,\nso far as I can read or hear no one has ever looked at it with the\nleast attention At the first glance, you see it is made of very\nfine red striped agates, which have been broken into small pieces,\nand fastened together again by paste also of agate There would be\nnothing wonderful in this, if this were all. It is well known that\nby the movements of strata, portions of rock are often shattered\nto pieces:--well known also that agate is a deposit of flint by\nwater under certain conditions of heat and pressure: there is,\ntherefore, nothing wonderful in an agate's being broken; and\nnothing wonderful in its being mended with the solution out of\nwhich it was itself originally congealed. And with this\nexplanation, most people, looking at a brecciated agate, or\nbrecciated anything, seem to be satisfied. I was so myself, for\ntwenty years; but, lately happening to stay for some time at the\nSwiss Baden, where the beach of the Limmat is almost wholly\ncomposed of brecciated limestones, I began to examine them\nthoughtfully; and perceived, in the end, that they were, one and\nall, knots of as rich mystery as any poor little human brain was\never lost in. That piece of agate in your hand, Mary, will show\nyou many of the common phenomena of breccias; but you need not\nknit your brows over it in that way; depend upon it, neither you\nnor I shall ever know anything about the way it was made, as long\nas we live.\n\nDORA. That does not seem much to depend upon.\n\nL. Pardon me, puss. When once we gain some real notion of the\nextent and unconquerableness of our ignorance, it is a very broad\nand restful thing to depend upon: you can throw yourself upon it\nat ease, as on a cloud, to feast with the gods. You do not\nthenceforward trouble yourself,--nor any one else,--with theories,\nor the contradiction of theories; you neither get headache nor\nheart-burning and you nevermore waste your poor little store of\nstrength or allowance of time.\n\nHowever, there are certain facts, about this agate-making, which I\ncan tell you; and then you may look at it in a pleasant wonder as\nlong as you like, pleasant wonder is no loss of time.\n\nFirst, then, it is not broken freely by a blow; it is slowly\nwrung, or ground, to pieces. You can only with extreme dimness\nconceive the force exerted on mountains in transitional states of\nmovement. You have all read a little geology; and you know how\ncoolly geologists talk of mountains being raised or depressed.\nThey talk coolly of it, because they are accustomed to the fact;\nbut the very universality of the fact prevents us from ever\nconceiving distinctly the conditions of force involved. You know I\nwas living last year in Savoy; my house was on the back of a\nsloping mountain, which rose gradually for two miles behind it;\nand then fell at once in a great precipice toward Geneva, going\ndown three thousand feet in four or five cliffs, or steps. Now\nthat whole group of cliffs had simply been torn away by sheer\nstrength from the rocks below, as if the whole mass had been as\nsoft as biscuit. Put four or five captains' biscuits on the floor,\non the top of one another; and try to break them all in half, not\nby bending, but by holding one half down, and tearing the other\nhalves straight up;--of course you will not be able to do it, but\nyou will feel and comprehend the sort of force needed. Then, fancy\neach captains' biscuit a bed of rock, six or seven hundred feet\nthick; and the whole mass torn straight through; and one half\nheaved up three thousand feet, grinding against the other as it\nrose,--and you will have some idea of the making of the Mont\nSaleve.\n\nMAY. But it must crush the rocks all to dust!\n\nL. No; for there is no room for dust. The pressure is too great;\nprobably the heat developed also so great that the rock is made\npartly ductile; but the worst of it is, that we never can see\nthese parts of mountains in the state they were left in at the\ntime of their elevation; for it is precisely in these rents and\ndislocations that the crystalline power principally exerts itself.\nIt is essentially a styptic power, and wherever the earth is torn,\nit heals and binds; nay, the torture and grieving of the earth\nseem necessary to bring out its full energy; for you only find the\ncrystalline living power fully in action, where the rents and\nfaults are deep and many.\n\nDORA. If you please, sir,--would you tell us--what are \"faults\"?\n\nL. You never heard of such things?\n\nDORA. Never in all our lives.\n\nL. When a vein of rock which is going on smoothly, is interrupted\nby another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it\nout, so that it has to begin again in another place--that is\ncalled a fault. _I_ always think it ought to be called the fault\nof the vein that interrupts it; but the miners always call it the\nfault of the vein that is interrupted.\n\nDORA. So it is, if it does not begin again where it left off.\n\nL. Well, that is certainly the gist of the business: but, whatever\ngood-natured old lecturers may do, the rocks have a bad habit,\nwhen they are once interrupted, of never asking \"Where was I?\"\n\nDORA. When the two halves of the dining-table came separate,\nyesterday, was that a \"fault\"?\n\nL. Yes; but not the table's. However, it is not a bad\nillustration, Dora. When beds of rock are only interrupted by a\nfissure, but remain at the same level, like the two halves of the\ntable, it is not called a fault, but only a fissure; but if one\nhalf of the table be either tilted higher than the other, or\npushed to the side, so that the two parts will not fit, it is a\nfault. You had better read the chapter on faults in Jukes's\nGeology; then you will know all about it. And this rent that I am\ntelling you of in the Saleve, is one only of myriads, to which are\nowing the forms of the Alps, as, I believe, of all great mountain\nchains. Wherever you see a precipice on any scale of real\nmagnificence, you will nearly always find it owing to some\ndislocation of this kind; but the point of chief wonder to me is\nthe delicacy of the touch by which these gigantic rents have been\napparently accomplished. Note, however, that we have no clear\nevidence, hitherto, of the time taken to produce any of them. We\nknow that a change of temperature alters the position and the\nangles of the atoms of crystals, and also the entire bulk of\nrocks. We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part of all\nsubterranean, action, temperatures are continually changing, and\ntherefore masses of rock must be expanding or contracting, with\ninfinite slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must\nresult in mechanical strain somewhere, both in their own\nsubstance, and in that of the rocks surrounding them; and we can\nform no conception of the result of irresistible pressure, applied\nso as to rend and raise, with imperceptible slowness of gradation,\nmasses thousands of feet in thickness. We want some experiments\ntried on masses of iron and stone; and we can't get them tried,\nbecause Christian creatures never will seriously and sufficiently\nspend money, except to find out the shortest ways of killing each\nother. But, besides this slow kind of pressure, there is evidence\nof more or less sudden violence, on the same terrific scale; and,\nthrough it all, the wonder, as I said, is always to me the\ndelicacy of touch. I cut a block of the Saleve limestone from the\nedge of one of the principal faults which have formed the\nprecipice; it is a lovely compact limestone, and the fault itself\nis filled up with a red breccia, formed of the crushed fragments\nof the torn rock, cemented by a rich red crystalline paste. I have\nhad the piece I cut from it smoothed, and polished across the\njunction; here it is; and you may now pass your soft little\nfingers over the surface, without so much as feeling the place\nwhere a rock which all the hills of England might have been sunk\nin the body of, and not a summit seen, was torn asunder through\nthat whole thickness, as a thin dress is torn when you tread upon\nit.\n\n(The audience examine the stone, and touch it timidly, but the\nmatter remains inconceivable to them.)\n\nMARY (struck by the beauty of the stone). But this is almost\nmarble?\n\nL. It is quite marble. And another singular point in the business,\nto my mind, is that these stones, which men have been cutting into\nslabs, for thousands of years, to ornament their principal\nbuildings with,--and which, under the general name of \"marble,\"\nhave been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of architecture,\namong all civilized nations,--are precisely those on which the\nsigns and brands of these earth agonies have been chiefly struck;\nand there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is\nnot the record of their ancient torture. What a boundless capacity\nfor sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the human mind!\nFancy reflective beings, who cut and polish stones for three\nthousand years, for the sake of the pretty stains upon them; and\neducate themselves to an art at last (such as it is), of imitating\nthese veins by dexterous painting; and never a curious soul of\nthem, all that while, asks, \"What painted the rocks?\"\n\n(The audience look dejected, and ashamed of themselves.)\n\nThe fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through our lives;\nand it is only by pinching ourselves very hard that we ever come\nto see, or understand, anything. At least, it is not always we who\npinch ourselves; sometimes other people pinch us; which I suppose\nis very good of them,--or other things, which I suppose is very\nproper of them. But it is a sad life; made up chiefly of naps and\npinches.\n\n(Some of the audience, on this, appearing to think that the others\nrequire pinching, the LECTURER changes the subject.)\n\nNow, however, for once, look at a piece of marble carefully, and\nthink about it. You see this is one side of the fault; the other\nside is down or up, nobody knows where; but, on this side, you can\ntrace the evidence of the dragging and tearing action. All along\nthe edge of this marble, the ends of the fibers of the rock are\ntorn, here an inch, and there half an inch, away from each other;\nand you see the exact places where they fitted, before they were\ntorn separate: and you see the rents are now all filled up with\nthe sanguine paste, full of the broken pieces of the rock; the\npaste itself seems to have been half melted, and partly to have\nalso melted the edge of the fragments it contains, and then to\nhave crystallized with them, and round them. And the brecciated\nagate I first showed you contains exactly the same phenomena; a\nzoned crystallization going on amidst the cemented fragments,\npartly altering the structure of those fragments themselves, and\nsubject to continual change, either in the intensity of its own\npower, or in the nature of the materials submitted to it;--so\nthat, at one time, gravity acts upon them, and disposes them in\nhorizontal layers, or causes them to droop in stalactites; and at\nanother, gravity is entirely defied, and the substances in\nsolution are crystallized in bands of equal thickness on every\nside of the cell. It would require a course of lectures longer\nthan these (I have a great mind,--you have behaved so saucily--to\nstay and give them) to describe to you the phenomena of this kind,\nin agates and chalcedonies only,--nay, there is a single\nsarcophagus in the British Museum, covered with grand sculpture of\nthe 18th dynasty, which contains in magnificent breccia (agates\nand jaspers imbedded in porphyry), out of which it is hewn,\nmaterial for the thought of years; and record of the earth-sorrow\nof ages in comparison with the duration of which, the Egyptian\nletters tell us but the history of the evening and morning of a\nday.\n\nAgates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their past\nhistory, but all crystallization goes on under, and partly\nrecords, circumstances of this kind--circumstances of infinite\nvariety, but always involving difficulty, interruption, and change\nof condition at different times. Observe, first, you have the\nwhole mass of the rock in motion, either contracting itself, and\nso gradually widening the cracks, or being compressed, and thereby\nclosing them, and crushing their edges,--and, if one part of its\nsubstance be softer, at the given temperature, than another,\nprobably squeezing that softer substance out into the veins. Then\nthe veins themselves, when the rock leaves them open by its\ncontraction, act with various power of suction upon its\nsubstance;--by capillary attraction when they are fine,--by that\nof pure vacuity when they are larger, or by changes in the\nconstitution and condensation of the mixed gases with which they\nhave been originally filled. Those gases themselves may be\nsupplied in all variation of volume and power from below; or,\nslowly, by the decomposition of the rocks themselves; and, at\nchanging temperatures, must exert relatively changing forces of\ndecomposition and combination on the walls of the veins they fill;\nwhile water, at every degree of heat and pressure (from beds of\neverlasting ice, alternate with cliffs of native rock, to volumes\nof red hot, or white hot, steam), congeals, and drips, and throbs,\nand thrills, from crag to crag; and breathes from pulse to pulse\nof foaming or fiery arteries, whose beating is felt through chains\nof the great islands of the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift\nyour bracelets, and makes whole kingdoms of the world quiver in\ndeadly earthquake, as if they were light as aspen leaves. And,\nremember, the poor little crystals have to live their lives, and\nmind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as best they\nmay. They are wonderfully like human creatures,--forget all that\nis going on if they don't see it, however dreadful; and never\nthink what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving,\nand indolent or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no\nthought whatever of the lava or the flood which may break over\nthem any day; and evaporate them into air-bubbles, or wash them\ninto a solution of salts. And you may look at them, once\nunderstanding the surrounding conditions of their fate, with an\nendless interest. You will see crowds of unfortunate little\ncrystals, who have been forced to constitute themselves in a\nhurry, their dissolving element being fiercely scorched away; you\nwill see them doing their best, bright and numberless, but tiny.\nThen you will find indulged crystals, who have had centuries to\nform themselves in, and have changed their mind and ways\ncontinually; and have been tired, and taken heart again; and have\nbeen sick, and got well again; and thought they would try a\ndifferent diet, and then thought better of it; and made but a poor\nuse of their advantages, after all. And others you will see, who\nhave begun life as wicked crystals; and then have been impressed\nby alarming circumstances, and have become converted crystals, and\nbehaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen away again, and\nended, but discreditably, perhaps even in decomposition; so that\none doesn't know what will become of them. And sometimes you will\nsee deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are\ndeadly to all near them; and sometimes you will see deceitful\ncrystals, that seem flint-edged, like our little quartz-crystal of\na housekeeper here (hush! Dora), and are endlessly gentle and true\nwherever gentleness and truth are needed. And sometimes you will\nsee little child-crystals put to school like school-girls, and\nmade to stand in rows; and taken the greatest care of, and taught\nhow to hold themselves up, and behave: and sometimes you will see\nunhappy little child-crystals left to lie about in the dirt, and\npick up their living, and learn manners where they can. And\nsometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like\ngreat capitalists and little laborers; and politico-economic\ncrystals teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat\neach other; and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise ones;\nand impatient crystals spoiling the plans of patient ones,\nirreparably; just as things go on in the world. And sometimes you\nmay see hypocritical crystals taking the shape of others, though\nthey are nothing like in their minds; and vampire crystals eating\nout the hearts of others; and hermit-crab crystals living in the\nshells of others; and parasite crystals living on the means of\nothers; and courtier crystals glittering in attendance upon\nothers; and all these, besides the two great companies of war and\npeace, who ally themselves, resolutely to attack, or resolutely to\ndefend. And for the close, you see the broad shadow and deadly\nforce of inevitable fate, above all this: you see the multitudes\nof crystals whose time has come; not a set time, as with us, but\nyet a time, sooner or later, when they all must give up their\ncrystal ghosts:--when the strength by which they grew, and the\nbreath given them to breathe, pass away from them; and they fail,\nand are consumed, and vanish away; and another generation is\nbrought to life, framed out of their ashes.\n\nMARY. It is very terrible. Is it not the complete fulfillment,\ndown into the very dust, of that verse: \"The whole creation\ngroaneth and travaileth in pain?\"\n\nL. I do not know that it is in pain, Mary: at least, the evidence\ntends to show that there is much more pleasure than pain, as soon\nas sensation becomes possible.\n\nLUCILLA. But then, surely, if we are told that it is pain, it must\nbe pain?\n\nL. Yes; if we are told; and told in the way you mean, Lucilla; but\nnothing is said of the proportion to pleasure. Unmitigated pain\nwould kill any of us in a few hours; pain equal to our pleasures\nwould make us loathe life; the word itself cannot be applied to\nthe lower conditions of matter in its ordinary sense. But wait\ntill to-morrow to ask me about this. To-morrow is to be kept for\nquestions and difficulties; let us keep to the plain facts to-day.\nThere is yet one group of facts connected with this rending of the\nrocks, which I especially want you to notice. You know, when you\nhave mended a very old dress, quite meritoriously, till it won't\nmend any more--\n\nEGYPT (interrupting). Could not you sometimes take gentlemen's\nwork to illustrate by?\n\nL. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, Egypt; and when\nit is useful, girls cannot easily understand it.\n\nDORA. I am sure we should understand it better than gentlemen\nunderstand about sewing.\n\nL. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction,\nwhen I touch upon matters of the kind too high for me; and\nbesides, I never intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of\nsewing;--though you always seem to think I am laughing at you. In\nall seriousness, illustrations from sewing are those which Neith\nlikes me best to use; and which young ladies ought to like\neverybody to use. What do you think the beautiful word \"wife\"\ncomes from?\n\nDORA (tossing her head). I don't think it is a particularly\nbeautiful word.\n\nL. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think \"bride\" sounds better;\nbut wife's the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word\nin which the English and Latin languages conquer the French and\nthe Greek. I hope the French will some day get a word for it, yet,\ninstead of their dreadful \"femme.\" But what do you think it comes\nfrom?\n\nDORA. I never did think about it.\n\nL. Nor you, Sibyl?\n\nSIBYL. No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there.\n\nL. Yes, but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do\nmean something. Wife means \"weaver\". You have all the right to\ncall yourselves little \"housewives,\" when you sew neatly.\n\nDORA. But I don t think we want to call ourselves 'little\nhousewives'.\n\nL. You must either be house-wives, or house-moths; remember that.\nIn the deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and\nembroider them, or feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had\nbetter let me keep my sewing illustration, and help me out with\nit.\n\nDORA. Well, we'll hear it, under protest.\n\nL. You have heard it before, but with reference to other matters.\nWhen it is said, \"no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old\ngarment, else it taketh from the old,\" does it not mean that the\nnew piece tears the old one away at the sewn edge?\n\nDORA. Yes; certainly.\n\nL. And when you mend a decayed stuff with strong thread, does not\nthe whole edge come away sometimes, when it tears again?\n\nDORA. Yes; and then it is of no use to mend it any more.\n\nL. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that: but the same thing\nhappens to them continually. I told you they were full of rents,\nor veins. Large masses of mountain are sometimes as full of veins\nas your hand is; and of veins nearly as fine (only you know a rock\nvein does not mean a tube, but a crack or cleft). Now these clefts\nare mended, usually, with the strongest material the rock can\nfind; and often literally with threads; for the gradually opening\nrent seems to draw the substance it is filled with into fibers,\nwhich cross from one side of it to the other, and are partly\ncrystalline; so that, when the crystals become distinct, the\nfissure has often exactly the look of a tear, brought together\nwith strong cross stitches. Now when this is completely done, and\nall has been fastened and made firm, perhaps some new change of\ntemperature may occur, and the rock begin to contract again. Then\nthe old vein must open wider; or else another open elsewhere. If\nthe old vein widen, it MAY do so at its center; but it constantly\nhappens, with well filled veins, that the cross stitches are too\nstrong to break; the walls of the vein, instead, are torn away by\nthem: and another little supplementary vein--often three or four\nsuccessively--will be thus formed at the side of the first.\n\nMARY. That is really very much like our work. But what do the\nmountains use to sew with?\n\nL. Quartz, whenever they can get it: pure limestones are obliged\nto be content with carbonate of lime; but most mixed rocks can\nfind some quartz for themselves. Here is a piece of black slate\nfrom the Buet: it looks merely like dry dark mud; you could not\nthink there was any quartz in it; but, you see, its rents are all\nstitched together with beautiful white thread, which is the purest\nquartz, so close drawn that you can break it like flint, in the\nmass; but, where it has been exposed to the weather, the fine\nfibrous structure is shown: and, more than that, you see the\nthreads have been all twisted and pulled aside, this way and the\nother, by the warpings and shifting of the sides of the vein as it\nwidened.\n\nMARY. It is wonderful! But is that going on still? Are the\nmountains being torn and sewn together again at this moment?\n\nL. Yes, certainly, my dear: but I think, just as certainly (though\ngeologists differ on this matter), not with the violence, or on\nthe scale, of their ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to\nbe tending towards a condition of at least temporary rest; and\nthat groaning and travailing of the creation, as, assuredly, not\nwholly in pain, is not, in the full sense, \"until now.\"\n\nMARY. I want so much to ask you about that!\n\nSIBYL. Yes; and we all want to ask you about a great many other\nthings besides.\n\nL. It seems to me that you have got quite as many new ideas as are\ngood for any of you at present: and I should not like to burden\nyou with more; but I must see that those you have are clear, if I\ncan make them so; so we will have one more talk, for answer of\nquestions, mainly. Think over all the ground, and make your\ndifficulties thoroughly presentable. Then we'll see what we can\nmake of them.\n\nDORA. They shall all be dressed in their very best; and curtsey as\nthey come in.\n\nL. No, no, Dora; no curtseys, if you please. I had enough of them\nthe day you all took a fit of reverence, and curtsied me out of\nthe room.\n\nDORA. But, you know, we cured ourselves of the fault, at once, by\nthat fit. We have never been the least respectful since. And the\ndifficulties will only curtsey themselves out of the room, I\nhope;--come in at one door--vanish at the other.\n\nL. What a pleasant world it would be, if all its difficulties were\ntaught to behave so! However, one can generally make something, or\n(better still) nothing, or at least less of them, if they\nthoroughly know their own minds; and your difficulties--I must say\nthat for you, children,--generally do know their own minds, as you\ndo yourselves.\n\nDORA. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow\nso much as that girls had any minds to know.\n\nL. They will at least admit that you have minds to change, Dora.\n\nMARY. You might have left us the last speech, without a retouch.\nBut we'll put our little minds, such as they are, in the best trim\nwe can, for to-morrow.\n\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE 10.\n\nTHE CRYSTAL REST\n\n\nEvening. The fireside. L's arm-chair in the comfortablest corner.\n\nL. (perceiving various arrangements being made of footstool,\ncushion, screen, and the like.) Yes, yes, it's all very fine! and\nI am to sit here to be asked questions till supper-time, am I?\n\nDORA. I don't think you can have any supper to-night:--we've got\nso much to ask.\n\nLILY. Oh, Miss Dora! We can fetch it him here, you know, so\nnicely!\n\nL. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with competitive examination\ngoing on over one's plate: the competition being among the\nexaminers. Really, now that I know what teasing things girls are,\nI don't so much wonder that people used to put up patiently with\nthe dragons who took THEM for supper. But I can't help myself, I\nsuppose;--no thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll\nanswer as civilly as may be.\n\nDORA. We don't so much care about being answered civilly, as about\nnot being asked things back again.\n\nL. \"Ayez seulement la patience que je le parle.\" There shall be no\nrequitals.\n\nDORA. Well, then, first of all--What shall we ask first, Mary?\n\nMARY. It does not matter. I think all the questions come into one,\nat last, nearly.\n\nDORA. You know, you always talk as if the crystals were alive; and\nwe never understand how much you are in play, and how much in\nearnest. That's the first thing.\n\nL. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how much I am in\nearnest. The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle you. They look\nas if they were alive, and make me speak as if they were; and I do\nnot in the least know how much truth there is in the appearance.\nI'm not to ask things back again to-night, but all questions of\nthis sort lead necessarily to the one main question, which we\nasked, before, in vain, \"What is it to be alive?\"\n\nDORA. Yes; but we want to come back to that: for we've been\nreading scientific books about the \"conservation of forces,\" and\nit seems all so grand, and wonderful; and the experiments are so\npretty; and I suppose it must be all right: but then the books\nnever speak as if there were any such thing as \"life.\"\n\nL. They mostly omit that part of the subject, certainly, Dora; but\nthey are beautifully right as far as they go; and life is not a\nconvenient element to deal with. They seem to have been getting\nsome of it into and out of bottles, in their \"ozone\" and\n\"antizone\" lately; but they still know little of it: and,\ncertainly, I know less.\n\nDORA. You promised not to be provoking, to-night.\n\nL. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know less of the secrets\nof life than the philosophers do; I yet know one corner of ground\non which we artists can, stand, literally as \"Life Guards\" at bay,\nas steadily as the Guards at Inkermann; however hard the\nphilosophers push. And you may stand with us, if once you learn to\ndraw nicely.\n\nDORA. I'm sure we are all trying! but tell us where we may stand.\n\nL. You may always stand by Form, against Force. To a painter, the\nessential character of anything is the form of it, and the\nphilosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for\ninstance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific\nenergy (or whatever else they like to call it), in a tea-kettle as\nin a Gier-eagle. Very good; that is so; and it is very\ninteresting. It requires just as much heat as will boil the\nkettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest; and as much more to\nbring him down again on a hare or a partridge. But we painters,\nacknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the\nbird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our\nprincipal interest to the difference in their forms. For us the\nprimarily cognizable facts, in the two things, are, that the\nkettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak, the one a lid on its\nback, the other a pair of wings,--not to speak of the distinction\nalso of volition which the philosophers may properly call merely a\nform or mode of force,--but then, to an artist, the form or mode,\nis the gist of the business. The kettle chooses to sit still on\nthe hob, the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of the\nchoice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfillment of\nit, which appears to us the more interesting circumstance--though\nthe other is very interesting too. Exceedingly so! Don't laugh\nchildren, the philosophers have been doing quite splendid work\nlately, in their own way especially, the transformation of force\ninto light is a great piece of systematized discovery and this\nnotion about the sun being supplied with his flame by ceaseless\nmeteoric hail is grand, and looks very likely to be true. Of\ncourse, it is only the old gunlock,--flint and steel,--on a large\nscale but the order and majesty of it are sublime. Still, we\nsculptors and painters care little about it. \"It is very fine,\" we\nsay, \"and very useful, this knocking the light out of the sun, or\ninto it, by an eternal cataract of planets. But you may hail away,\nso, forever, and you will not knock out what we can. Here is a bit\nof silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single\nhammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out\nthe head of the Apollo of Clazomenas. It is merely a matter of\nform; but if any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary\nsystem to hammer with, can hit out such another bit of silver as\nthis,--we will take off our hats to you. For the present, we keep\nthem on.\"\n\nMARY. Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I don't think we\nshall any of us like having only form to depend upon.\n\nL. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear.\n\nMARY. It does not seem to separate us from the dust of the ground.\nIt is that breathing of the life which we want to understand.\n\nL. So you should: but hold fast to the form, and defend that\nfirst, as distinguished from the mere transition of forces.\nDiscern the molding hand of the potter commanding the clay, from\nhis merely beating foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find\nincense, in the vase, afterwards,--well: but it is curious how far\nmere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. For instance,\nwith regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force--\nlight;--they never consider how far the existence of it depends on\nthe putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the\nformal arrangement which we call an eye. The German philosophers\nbegan the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling us,\nthere was no such thing--as light at all, unless we chose to see\nit: now, German and English, both, have reversed their engines,\nand insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is,\nthough nobody could ever see it. The fact being that the force\nmust be there, and the eyes there; and \"light\" means the effect of\nthe one on the other;--and perhaps, also--(Plato saw farther into\nthat mystery than any one has since, that I know of),--on\nsomething a little way within the eyes; but we may stand quite\nsafe, close behind the retina, and defy the philosophers.\n\nSIBYL. But I don't care so much about defying the philosophers, if\nonly one could get a clear idea of life, or soul, for one's self.\n\nL. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, in that cave of\nyours, than any of us. I was just going to ask you about\ninspiration, and the golden bough, and the like; only I remembered\nI was not to ask anything. But, will not you, at least, tell us\nwhether the ideas of Life, as the power of putting things\ntogether, or \"making\" them; and of Death, as the power of pushing\nthings separate, or \"unmaking\" them, may not be very simply held\nin balance against each other?\n\nSIBYL. No, I am not in my cave to-night; and cannot tell you\nanything.\n\nL. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a great separator; it is\nlittle more than the expansion of Moliere's great sentence, \"Il\ns'ensuit de la, que tout ce qu'ily a de beau est dans les\ndictionnaires; il n'y a que les mots qui sont transposes.\" But\nwhen you used to be in your cave, Sibyl, and to be inspired, there\nwas (and there remains still in some small measure), beyond the\nmerely formative and sustaining power, another, which we painters\ncall \"passion\"--I don't know what the philosophers call it; we\nknow it makes people red, or white; and therefore it must be\nsomething, itself; and perhaps it is the most truly \"poetic\" or\n\"making\" force of all, creating a world of its own out of a\nglance, or a sigh: and the want of passion is perhaps the truest\ndeath, or \"unmaking\" of everything;--even of stones. By the way,\nyou were all reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the\nother day?\n\nSIBYL. Because you had told us it was so difficult, you thought it\ncould not be ascended.\n\nL Yes, I believed the Aiguille Verte would have held its own. But\ndo you recollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, when he first\nfelt sure of reaching the summit.\n\nSIBYL. Yes, it was, \"Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous etes morte, vous\netes morte!\"\n\nL. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. Now, can you at\nall fancy the difference between that feeling of triumph in a\nmountain's death; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in its\nlife--\n\n\"Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis Quum fremit\nilicibus quantus, gaudetque nivali Vertice, se attollens pater\nApenninus ad auras.\"\n\nDORA. You must translate for us mere housekeepers, please--\nwhatever the carekeepers may know about it.\n\nMAY. I'll try then to?\n\nL. No Dryden is a far way worse than nothing, and nobody will \"do\"\nYou can't translate it. But this is all you need know, that the\nlines are full of a passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood,\nor protecting power over Italy; and of sympathy with, their joy in\ntheir snowy strength in heaven, and with the same joy, shuddering\nthrough all the leaves of their forests.\n\nMARY. Yes, that is a difference indeed, but then, you know, one\ncan't help feeling that it is fanciful. It is very delightful to\nimagine the mountains to be alive; but then,--are they alive?\n\nL. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the feelings of the\npurest and most mightily passioned human souls are likely to be\nthe truest. Not, indeed, if they do not desire to know the truth,\nor blind themselves to it that they may please themselves with\npassion; for then they are no longer pure: but if, continually\nseeking and accepting the truth as far as it is discernible, they\ntrust their Maker for the integrity of the instincts. He has\ngifted them with, and rest in the sense of a higher truth which\nthey cannot demonstrate, I think they will be most in the right,\nso.\n\nDORA and JESSIE (clapping their hands). Then we really may believe\nthat the mountains are living?\n\nL. You may at least earnestly believe that the presence of the\nspirit which culminates in your own life, shows itself in dawning,\nwherever the dust of the earth begins to assume any orderly and\nlovely state. You will find it impossible to separate this idea of\ngradated manifestation from that of the vital power. Things are\nnot either wholly alive, or wholly dead. They are less or more\nalive. Take the nearest, most easily examined instance--the life of\na flower. Notice what a different degree and kind of life there is\nin the calyx and the corolla. The calyx is nothing but the\nswaddling clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is bound up in\nit, hand and foot; guarded in it, restrained by it, till the time\nof birth. The shell is hardly more subordinate to the germ in the\negg, than the calyx to the blossom. It bursts at last; but it\nnever lives as the corolla does. It may fall at the moment its\ntask is fulfilled, as in the poppy; or wither gradually, as in the\nbuttercup; or persist in a ligneous apathy, after the flower is\ndead, as in the rose; or harmonize itself so as to share in the\naspect of the real flower, as in the lily; but it never shares in\nthe corolla's bright passion of life. And the gradations which\nthus exist between the different members of organic creatures,\nexist no less between the different ranges of organism. We know no\nhigher or more energetic life than our own; but there seems to me\nthis great good in the idea of gradation of life--it admits the\nidea of a life above us, in other creatures, as much nobler than\nours, as ours is nobler than that of the dust.\n\nMARY. I am glad you have said that; for I know Violet and Lucilla\nand May want to ask you something; indeed, we all do; only you\nfrightened Violet so about the anthill, that she can't say a word;\nand May is afraid of your teasing her, too: but I know they are\nwondering why you are always telling them about heathen gods and\ngoddesses, as if you half believed in them; and you represent them\nas good; and then we see there is really a kind of truth in the\nstories about them; and we are all puzzled: and, in this, we\ncannot even make our difficulty quite clear to ourselves;--it\nwould be such a long confused question, if we could ask you all we\nshould like to know.\n\nL. Nor is it any wonder, Mary; for this is indeed the longest, and\nthe most wildly confused question that reason can deal with; but I\nwill try to give you, quickly, a few clear ideas about the heathen\ngods, which you may follow out afterwards, as your knowledge\nincreases.\n\nEvery heathen conception of deity in which you are likely to be\ninterested, has three distinct characters:--\n\nI. It has a physical character. It represents some of the great\npowers or objects of nature--sun or moon, or heaven, or the winds,\nor the sea. And the fables first related about each deity\nrepresent, figuratively, the action or the natural power which it\nrepresents; such as the rising and setting of the sun, the tides\nof the sea, and so on.\n\nII. It has an ethical character, and represents, in its history,\nthe moral dealings of God with man. Thus Apollo is first,\nphysically, the sun contending with darkness; but morally, the\npower of divine life contending with corruption. Athena is,\nphysically, the air; morally, the breathing of the divine spirit\nof wisdom. Neptune is, physically, the sea; morally, the supreme\npower of agitating passion; and so on.\n\nIII. It has, at last, a personal character; and is realized in the\nminds of its worshipers as a living spirit, with whom men may\nspeak face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.\n\nNow it is impossible to define exactly, how far, at any period of\na national religion, these three ideas are mingled; or how far one\nprevails over the other. Each inquirer usually takes up one of\nthese ideas, and pursues it, to the exclusion of the others; no\nimpartial effort seems to have been made to discern the real state\nof the heathen imagination in its successive phases. For the\nquestion is not at all what a mythological figure meant in its\norigin; but what it became in each subsequent mental development\nof the nation inheriting the thought. Exactly in proportion to the\nmental and moral insight of any race, its mythological figures\nmean more to it, and become more real. An early and savage race\nmeans nothing more (because it has nothing more to mean) by its\nApollo, than the sun; while a cultivated Greek means every\noperation of divine intellect and justice. The Neith, of Egypt,\nmeant, physically, little more than the blue of the air; but the\nGreek, in a climate of alternate storm and calm, represented the\nwild fringes of the storm-cloud by the serpents of her aegis; and\nthe lightning and cold of the highest thunderclouds, by the Gorgon\non her shield: while morally, the same types represented to him\nthe mystery and changeful terror of knowledge, as her spear and\nhelm its ruling and defensive power. And no study can be more\ninteresting, or more useful to you, than that of the different\nmeanings which have been created by great nations, and great\npoets, out of mythological figures given them, at first, in utter\nsimplicity. But when we approach them in their third, or personal,\ncharacter (and, for its power over the whole national mind, this\nis far the leading one), we are met at once by questions which may\nwell put all of you at pause. Were they idly imagined to be real\nbeings? and did they so usurp the place of the true God? Or were\nthey actually real beings,--evil spirits,--leading men away from\nthe true God? Or is it conceivable that they might have been real\nbeings,--good spirits,--entrusted with some message from the true\nGod? These were the questions you wanted to ask; were they not,\nLucilla?\n\nLUCILLA. Yes, indeed.\n\nL. Well, Lucilla, the answer will much depend upon the clearness\nof your faith in the personality of the spirits which are\ndescribed in the book of your own religion;--their personality,\nobserve, as distinguished from merely symbolical visions. For\ninstance, when Jeremiah has the vision of the seething pot with\nits mouth to the north, you know that this which he sees is not a\nreal thing; but merely a significant dream. Also, when Zachariah\nsees the speckled horses among the myrtle trees in the bottom, you\nstill may suppose the vision symbolical;--you do not think of them\nas real spirits, like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. But\nwhen you are told of the four riders in the Apocalypse, a distinct\nsense of personality begins to force itself upon you. And though\nyou might, in a dull temper, think that (for one instance of all)\nthe fourth rider on the pale horse was merely a symbol of the\npower of death,--in your stronger and more earnest moods you will\nrather conceive of him as a real and living angel. And when you\nlook back from the vision of the Apocalypse to the account of the\ndestruction of the Egyptian first-born, and of the army of\nSennacherib, and again to David's vision at the threshing floor of\nAraunah, the idea of personality in this death-angel becomes\nentirely defined, just as in the appearance of the angels to\nAbraham, Manoah, or Mary.\n\nNow, when you have once consented to this idea of a personal\nspirit, must not the question instantly follow: \"Does this spirit\nexercise its functions towards one race of men only, or towards\nall men? Was it an angel of death to the Jew only, or to the\nGentile also?\" You find a certain Divine agency made visible to a\nKing of Israel, as an armed angel, executing vengeance, of which\none special purpose was to lower his kingly pride. You find\nanother (or perhaps the same) agency, made visible to a Christian\nprophet as an angel standing in the sun, calling to the birds that\nfly under heaven to come, that they may eat the flesh of kings. Is\nthere anything impious in the thought that the same agency might\nhave been expressed to a Greek king, or Greek seer, by similar\nvisions?--that this figure, standing in the sun, and armed with\nthe sword, or the bow (whose arrows were drunk with blood), and\nexercising especially its power in the humiliation of the proud,\nmight, at first, have been called only \"Destroyer,\" and\nafterwards, as the light, or sun, of justice, was recognized in\nthe chastisement, called also \"Physician\" or \"Healer\"? If you feel\nhesitation in admitting the possibility of such a manifestation, I\nbelieve you will find it is caused, partly indeed by such trivial\nthings as the difference to your ear between Greek and English\nterms; but, far more, by uncertainty in your own mind respecting\nthe nature and truth of the visions spoken of in the Bible. Have\nany of you intently examined the nature of your belief in them?\nYou, for instance, Lucilla, who think often, and seriously, of\nsuch things?\n\nLUCILLA. No; I never could tell what to believe about them. I know\nthey must be true in some way or other; and I like reading about\nthem.\n\nL. Yes; and I like reading about them too, Lucilla; as I like\nreading other grand poetry. But, surely, we ought both to do more\nthan like it? Will God be satisfied with us, think you, if we read\nHis words, merely for the sake of an entirely meaningless poetical\nsensation?\n\nLUCILLA. But do not the people who give themselves to seek out the\nmeaning of these things, often get very strange, and extravagant?\n\nL. More than that, Lucilla. They often go mad. That abandonment of\nthe mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very thing\nI have been pleading with you against. I never said you should set\nyourself to discover the meanings; but you should take careful\npains to understand them, so far as they are clear; and you should\nalways accurately ascertain the state of your mind about them. I\nwant you never to read merely for the pleasure of fancy; still\nless as a formal religious duty (else you might as well take to\nrepeating Paters at once; for it is surely wiser to repeat one\nthing we understand, than read a thousand which we cannot).\nEither, therefore, acknowledge the passages to be, for the\npresent, unintelligible to you; or else determine the sense in\nwhich you at present receive them; or, at all events, the\ndifferent senses between which you clearly see that you must\nchoose. Make either your belief, or your difficulty, definite; but\ndo not go on, all through your life, believing nothing\nintelligently, and yet supposing that your having read the words\nof a divine book must give you the right to despise every religion\nbut your own. I assure you, strange as it may seem, our scorn of\nGreek tradition depends, not on our belief, but our disbelief, of\nour own traditions. We have, as yet, no sufficient clue to the\nmeaning of either; but you will always find that, in proportion to\nthe earnestness of our own faith, its tendency to accept a\nspiritual personality increases: and that the most vital and\nbeautiful Christian temper rests joyfully in its conviction of the\nmultitudinous ministry of living angels, infinitely varied in rank\nand power. You all know one expression of the purest and happiest\nform of such faith, as it exists in modern times, in Richter's\nlovely illustrations of the Lord's Prayer. The real and living\ndeath-angel, girt as a pilgrim, for journey, and softly crowned\nwith flowers, beckons at the dying mother's door; child-angels sit\ntalking face to face with mortal children, among the flowers;--\nhold them by their little coats, lest they fall on the stairs;\nwhisper dreams of heaven to them, leaning over their pillows;\ncarry the sound of the church bells for them far through the air;\nand even descending lower in service, fill little cups with honey,\nto hold out to the weary bee. By the way, Lily, did you tell the\nother children that story about your little sister, and Alice, and\nthe sea?\n\nLILY. I told it to Alice, and to Miss Dora. I don't think I did to\nanybody else. I thought it wasn't worth.\n\nL. We shall think it worth a great deal now, Lily, if you will\ntell it us. How old is Dotty, again? I forgot.\n\nLILY. She is not quite three; but she has such odd little old\nways, sometimes.\n\nL. And she was very fond of Alice?\n\nLILY. Yes; Alice was so good to her always!\n\nL. And so when Alice went away?\n\nLILY. Oh, it was nothing, you know, to tell about; only it was\nstrange at the time.\n\nL. Well; but I want you to tell it.\n\nLILY. The morning after Alice had gone, Dotty was very sad and\nrestless when she got up; and went about, looking into all the\ncorners, as if she could find Alice in them, and at last she came\nto me, and said, \"Is Alie gone over the great sea?\" And I said,\n\"Yes, she is gone over the great, deep sea, but she will come back\nagain some day.\" Then Dotty looked round the room; and I had just\npoured some water out into the basin; and Dotty ran to it, and got\nup on a chair, and dashed her hands through the water, again and\nagain; and cried, \"Oh, deep, deep sea! send little Alie back to\nme.\"\n\nL. Isn't that pretty, children? There's a dear little heathen for\nyou! The whole heart of Greek mythology is in that; the idea of a\npersonal being in the elemental power;--of its being moved by\nprayer;--and of its presence everywhere, making the broken\ndiffusion of the element sacred.\n\nNow, remember, the measure in which we may permit ourselves to\nthink of this trusted and adored personality, in Greek, or in any\nother, mythology, as conceivably a shadow of truth, will depend on\nthe degree in which we hold the Greeks, or other great nations,\nequal, or inferior, in privilege and character, to the Jews, or to\nourselves. If we believe that the great Father would use the\nimagination of the Jew as an instrument by which to exalt and lead\nhim; but the imagination of the Greek only to degrade and mislead\nhim: if we can suppose that real angels were sent to minister to\nthe Jews and to punish them; but no angels, or only mocking\nspectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes of angels, to lead\nLycurgus and Leonidas from desolate cradle to hopeless grave:--and\nif we can think that it was only the influence of specters, or the\nteaching of demons, which issued in the making of mothers like\nCornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we may, of course,\nreject the heathen Mythology in our privileged scorn: but, at\nleast, we are bound to examine strictly by what faults of our own\nit has come to pass, that the ministry of real angels among\nourselves is occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in the\nproduction of Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to\nCharlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like\nthat one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death\nwith a stick; and was brought in by the jury, \"guilty, with\nextenuating circumstances.\"\n\nMAY. Was that really possible?\n\nL. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I can lay my hand on the\nreference to it (and I should not have said \"the other day\"--it\nwas a year or two ago), but you may depend on the fact; and I\ncould give you many like it, if I chose. There was a murder done\nin Russia, very lately, on a traveler. The murderess's little\ndaughter was in the way, and found it out, somehow. Her mother\nkilled her, too, and put her into the oven. There is a peculiar\nhorror about the relations between parent and child, which are\nbeing now brought about by our variously degraded forms of\nEuropean white slavery. Here is one reference, I see, in my notes\non that story of Cleobis and Bito; though I suppose I marked this\nchiefly for its quaintness, and the beautifully Christian names of\nthe sons; but it is a good instance of the power of the King of\nthe Valley of Diamonds [Footnote: Notes vi.] among us.\n\nIn \"Galignani\" of July 21-22, 1862, is reported a trial of a\nfarmer's son in the department of the Yonne. The father, two years\nago, at Malay le Grand, gave up his property to his two sons, on\ncondition of being maintained by them. Simon fulfilled his\nagreement, but Pierre would not. The tribunal of Sens condemns\nPierre to pay eighty-four francs a year to his father. Pierre\nreplies, \"he would rather die than pay it.\" Actually, returning\nhome, he throws himself into the river, and the body is not found\ntill next day.\n\nMARY. But--but--I can't tell what you would have us think. Do you\nseriously mean that the Greeks were better than we are; and that\ntheir gods were real angels?\n\nL. No, my dear. I mean only that we know, in reality, less than\nnothing of the dealings of our Maker with our fellow-men; and can\nonly reason or conjecture safely about them, when we have\nsincerely humble thoughts of ourselves and our creeds.\n\nWe owe to the Greeks every noble discipline in literature, every\nradical principle of art; and every form of convenient beauty in\nour household furniture and daily occupations of life. We are\nunable, ourselves, to make rational use of half that we have\nreceived from them: and, of our own, we have nothing but\ndiscoveries in science, and fine mechanical adaptations of the\ndiscovered physical powers. On the other hand, the vice existing\namong certain classes, both of the rich and poor, in London,\nParis, and Vienna, could have been conceived by a Spartan or Roman\nof the heroic ages only as possible in a Tartarus, where fiends\nwere employed to teach, but not to punish, crime. It little\nbecomes us to speak contemptuously of the religion of races to\nwhom we stand in such relations; nor do I think any man of modesty\nor thoughtfulness will ever speak so of any religion, in which God\nhas allowed one good man to die, trusting.\n\nThe more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished\nconvictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful\nwhatever is right in them will become: and no error is so\nconclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err,\nthough He has allowed all other men to do so. There may be doubt\nof the meaning of other visions, but there is none respecting that\nof the dream of St. Peter; and you may trust the Rock of the\nChurch's Foundation for true interpreting, when he learned from it\nthat, \"in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh\nrighteousness, is accepted with Him.\" See that you understand what\nthat righteousness means; and set hand to it stoutly: you will\nalways measure your neighbors' creed kindly, in proportion to the\nsubstantial fruits of your own. Do not think you will ever get\nharm by striving to enter into the faith of others, and to\nsympathize, in imagination, with the guiding principles of their\nlives. So only can you justly love them, or pity them, or praise.\nBy the gracious effort you will double, treble--nay, indefinitely\nmultiply, at once the pleasure, the reverence, and the\nintelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and\nholier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the ashes of\nexpired religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among\ntheir graves, through the gathering darkness, and communicable\ncold.\n\nMARY (after some pause). We shall all like reading Greek history\nso much better after this! but it has put everything else out of\nour heads that we wanted to ask.\n\nL. I can tell you one of the things; and I might take credit for\ngenerosity in telling you; but I have a personal reason--Lucilla's\nverse about the creation.\n\nDORA. Oh, yes--yes; and its \"pain together, until now.\"\n\nL. I call you back to that, because I must warn you against an old\nerror of my own. Somewhere in the fourth volume of \"Modern\nPainters,\" I said that the earth seemed to have passed through its\nhighest state: and that, after ascending by a series of phases,\nculminating in its habitation by man, it seems to be now gradually\nbecoming less fit for that habitation.\n\nMARY. Yes, I remember.\n\nL. I wrote those passages under a very bitter impression of the\ngradual perishing of beauty from the loveliest scenes which I knew\nin the physical world;--not in any doubtful way, such as I might\nhave attributed to loss of sensation in myself--but by violent and\ndefinite physical action; such as the filling up of the Lac de\nChede by landslips from the Rochers des Fiz;--the narrowing of the\nLake Lucerne by the gaining delta of the stream of the Muotta-\nThal, which, in the course of years, will cut the lake into two,\nas that of Brientz has been divided from that of Thun;--the steady\ndiminishing of the glaciers north of the Alps, and still more, of\nthe sheets of snow on their southern slopes, which supply the\nrefreshing streams of Lombardy:--the equally steady increase of\ndeadly maremma round Pisa and Venice; and other such phenomena,\nquite measurably traceable within the limits even of short life,\nand unaccompanied, as it seemed, by redeeming or compensatory\nagencies. I am still under the same impression respecting the\nexisting phenomena; but I feel more strongly, every day, that no\nevidence to be collected within historical periods can be accepted\nas any clue to the great tendencies of geological change; but that\nthe great laws which never fail, and to which all change is\nsubordinate, appear such as to accomplish a gradual advance to\nlovelier order, and more calmly, yet more deeply, animated Rest.\nNor has this conviction ever fastened itself upon me more\ndistinctly, than during my endeavor to trace the laws which govern\nthe lowly framework of the dust. For, through all the phases of\nits transition and dissolution, there seems to be a continual\neffort to raise itself into a higher state; and a measured gain,\nthrough the fierce revulsion and slow renewal of the earth's\nframe, in beauty, and order, and permanence. The soft white\nsediments of the sea draw themselves, in process of time, into\nsmooth knots of sphered symmetry; burdened and strained under\nincrease of pressure, they pass into a nascent marble; scorched by\nfervent heat, they brighten and blanch into the snowy rock of\nParos and Carrara. The dark drift of the inland river, or stagnant\nslime of inland pool and lake, divides, or resolves itself as it\ndries, into layers of its several elements; slowly purifying each\nby the patient withdrawal of it from the anarchy of the mass in\nwhich it was mingled. Contracted by increasing drought, till it\nmust shatter into fragments, it infuses continually a finer ichor\ninto the opening veins, and finds in its weakness the first\nrudiments of a perfect strength. Rent at last, rock from rock,\nnay, atom from atom, and tormented in lambent fire, it knits,\nthrough the fusion, the fibers of a perennial endurance; and,\nduring countless subsequent centuries, declining, or, rather let\nme say, rising, to repose, finishes the infallible luster of its\ncrystalline beauty, under harmonies of law which are wholly\nbeneficent, because wholly inexorable.\n\n(The children seem pleased, but more inclined to think over these\nmatters than to talk.)\n\nL. (after giving them a little time). Mary, I seldom ask you to\nread anything out of books of mine; but there is a passage about\nthe Law of Help, which I want you to read to the children now,\nbecause it is of no use merely to put it in other words for them.\nYou know the place I mean, do not you?\n\nMARY. Yes (presently finding it); where shall I begin?\n\nL. Here, but the elder ones had better look afterwards at the\npiece which comes just before this.\n\nMARY (reads)\n\n\"A pure or holy state of anything is that in which all its parts\nare helpful or consistent. The highest and first law of the\nuniverse, and the other name of life, is therefore, 'help'. The\nother name of death is 'separation'. Government and cooperation\nare in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and\ncompetition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.\n\n\"Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take\nof the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the\npossible changes in the dust we tread on.\n\n\"Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more\nabsolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over\ntrodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not\nsay mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse, but\ntake merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten\nfootpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we\nshall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is\nburnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand and water. All these\nelements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy\nreciprocally each other's nature and power competing and fighting\nfor place at every tread of your foot, sand squeezing out clay,\nand clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and\ndefiling the whole. Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left\nin perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to\nlike, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations\npossible.\n\n\"Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it\ngradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit,\nwith help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain,\nand painted on, and be kept in kings' palaces. But such artificial\nconsistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its\nown instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white but clear;\nnot only clear, but hard; nor only clear and hard, but so set that\nit can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it\nthe loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a\nsapphire.\n\n\"Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar\npermission of quiet to the sand. It also becomes, first, a white\nearth; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges\nitself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have\nthe power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue,\ngreen, purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in which they\ncan be seen through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then\nan opal.\n\n\"In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white\nat first; but, instead of being discouraged, tries harder and\nharder; and comes out clear at last; and the hardest thing in the\nworld: and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the\npower of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the\nvividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a\ndiamond.\n\n\"Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself; contented\nenough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop: but if we insist on\nits proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into\nthe shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had by\npolitical economy of competition, we have, by political economy of\nco-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst\nof a star of snow.\"\n\nL. I have asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that\nwe have seen in the work and play of these past days, I would have\nyou gain at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming\ntrouble,--the unquestionable degradation,--of the elements of the\nphysical earth, must passively wait the appointed time of their\nrepose, or their restoration. It can only be brought about for\nthem by the agency of external law. But if, indeed, there be a\nnobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms;--if,\nindeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire which\ninhabits them, and that which animates us,--it must be shown, by\neach of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but\nin the activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our\nlabor, for the time when the Dust of the generations of men shall\nbe confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God. The\nhuman clay, now trampled and despised, will not be,--cannot be,--\nknit into strength and light by accident or ordinances of\nunassisted fate. By human cruelty and iniquity it has been\nafflicted;--by human mercy and justice it must be raised: and, in\nall fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of\ncreation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace,\nif you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly\nrequired,--and content that He should indeed require no more of\nyou,--than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with\nHim.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE I.\n\nPage 26.\n\n\n\"That third pyramid of hers.\"\n\nTHROUGHOUT the dialogues, it must be observed that \"Sibyl\" is\naddressed (when in play) as having once been the Cumaean Sibyl;\nand \"Egypt\" as having been Queen Nitocris,--the Cinderella and\n\"the greatest heroine and beauty\" of Egyptian story. The Egyptians\ncalled her \"Neith the Victorious\" (Nitocris), and the Greeks \"Face\nof the Rose\" (Rhodope). Chaucer's beautiful conception of\nCleopatra in the \"Legend of Good Women,\" is much more founded on\nthe traditions of her than on those of Cleopatra; and, especially\nin its close, modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death\nof Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a\npart of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfillment of\nthe earthly destiny of Beauty: \"She cast herself into a chamber\nfull of ashes.\"\n\nI believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have\neither built, or increased to double its former size, the third\npyramid of Gizeh: and the passage following in the text refers to\nan imaginary endeavor, by the Old Lecturer and the children\ntogether, to make out the description of that pyramid in the 167th\npage of the second volume of Bunsen's \"Egypt's Place in Universal\nHistory\"--ideal endeavor,--which ideally terminates as the Old\nLecturer's real endeavors to the same end always have terminated.\nThere are, however, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210\nof the same volume: but the \"Early Egyptian History for the\nYoung,\" by the author of \"Sidney Gray,\" contains, in a pleasant\nform, as much information as young readers will usually need.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE II.\n\nPage 27.\n\n\n\"Pyramid of Asychis?\"\n\nTHIS pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the\nshame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously, and first among\ngreat edifices, built with \"brick for stone.\" This was the\ninscription on it, according to Herodotus:\n\n\"Despise me not, in comparing me with the pyramids of stone; for I\nhave the pre-eminence over them, as far as Jupiter has pre-\neminence over the gods. For, striking with staves into the pool,\nmen gathered the clay which fastened itself to the staff, and\nkneaded bricks out of it, and so made me.\"\n\nThe word I have translated \"kneaded\" is literally \"drew;\" in the\nsense of drawing, for which the Latins used \"duco;\" and thus gave\nus our \"ductile\" in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or\nleader, in speaking of living clay. As the asserted pre-eminence\nof the edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest merely on the\nquantity of labor consumed in it, this pyramid is considered, in\nthe text, as the type, at once, of the base building, and of the\nlost labor, of future ages, so far at least as the spirits of\nmeasured and mechanical effort deal with it; but Neith, exercising\nher power upon it, makes it a type of the work of wise and\ninspired builders.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE III.\n\nPage 29.\n\n\n\"The Greater Pthah.\"\n\nIT is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness the personal\nagencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually associated\nin function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to each\nother in mysterious triads, uniting always symbolism of physical\nphenomena with real spiritual power. I have endeavored partly to\nexplain this in the text of the tenth Lecture here, it is only\nnecessary for the reader to know that the Greater Pthah more or\nless represents the formative power of order and measurement he\nalways stands on a four-square pedestal, \"the Egyptian cubit,\nmetaphorically used as the hieroglyphic for truth,\" his limbs are\nbound together, to signify fixed stability, as of a pillar; he has\na measuring-rod in his hand, and at Philas, is represented as\nholding an egg on a potter's wheel; but I do not know if this\nsymbol occurs in older sculptures. His usual title is the \"Lord of\nTruth\". Others, very beautiful \"King of the Two Worlds, of\nGracious Countenance,\" \"Superintendent of the Great Abode,\" etc.,\nare given by Mr. Birch in Arundale's \"Gallery of Antiquities,\"\nwhich I suppose is the book of best authority easily accessible.\nFor the full titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as\nyet the only--and I believe, still a very questionable--authority,\nand Arundale's little book, excellent in the text, has this great\ndefect, that its drawings give the statues invariably a ludicrous\nor ignoble character Readers who have not access to the originals\nmust be warned against this frequent fault in modern illustration\n(especially existing also in some of the painted casts of Gothic\nand Norman work at the Crystal Palace). It is not owing to any\nwillful want of veracity: the plates in Arundale's book are\nlaboriously faithful: but the expressions of both face and body in\na figure depend merely on emphasis of touch, and, in barbaric art\nmost draughtsmen emphasize what they plainly see--the barbarism,\nand miss conditions of nobleness, which they must approach the\nmonument in a different temper before they will discover and draw\nwith great subtlety before they can express.\n\nThe character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I ought rather to\nsay, of Pthah in his lower office, is sufficiently explained in\nthe text of the third Lecture, only the reader must be warned that\nthe Egyptian symbolism of him by the beetle was not a scornful\none, it expressed only the idea of his presence in the first\nelements of life. But it may not unjustly be used, in another\nsense, by us, who have seen his power in new development, and,\neven as it was, I cannot conceive that the Egyptians should have\nregarded their beetle headed image of him (Champollion,\n\"Pantheon,\" p. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the most\npainful of all their types of any beneficent power, and even among\nthose of evil influences, none can be compared with it, except its\nopposite, the tortoise headed demon of indolence.\n\nPasht (p. 27, line 9) is connected with the Greek Artemis,\nespecially in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She is\nusually lioness headed, sometimes cat headed, her attributes\nseeming often trivial or ludicrous unless their full meaning is\nknown, but the inquiry is much too wide to be followed here. The\ncat was sacred to her, or rather to the sun, and secondarily to\nher. She is alluded to in the text because she is always the\ncompanion of Pthah (called \"the beloved of Pthah,\" it may be as\nJudgment, demanded and longed for by Truth), and it may be well\nfor young readers to have this fixed in their minds, even by\nchance association. There are more statues of Pasht in the British\nMuseum than of any other Egyptian deity; several of them fine in\nworkmanship, nearly all in dark stone, which may be, presumably,\nto connect her, as the moon, with the night; and in her office of\navenger, with grief.\n\nThoth (p. 31, line 12), is the Recording Angel of Judgment; and\nthe Greek Hermes--Phre (line 16), is the Sun.\n\nNeith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom, and the Athena of\nthe Greeks. No sufficient statement of her many attributes, still\nless of their meanings, can be shortly given; but this should be\nnoted respecting the veiling of the Egyptian image of her by\nvulture wings--that as she is, physically, the goddess of the air,\nthis bird, the most powerful creature of the air known to the\nEgyptians, naturally became her symbol. It had other\nsignifications; but certainly this, when in connection with Neith.\nAs representing her, it was the most important sign, next to the\nwinged sphere, in Egyptian sculpture; and, just as in Homer,\nAthena herself guides her heroes into battle, this symbol of\nwisdom, giving victory, floats over the heads of the Egyptian\nKings. The Greeks, representing the goddess herself in human form,\nyet would not lose the power of the Egyptian symbol, and changed\nit into an angel of victory. First seen in loveliness on the early\ncoins of Syracuse and Leontium, it gradually became the received\nsign of all conquest, and the so called \"Victory\" of later times,\nwhich, little by little, loses its truth, and is accepted by the\nmoderns only as a personification of victory itself,--not as an\nactual picture of the living Angel who led to victory. There is a\nwide difference between these two conceptions,--all the difference\nbetween insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This I have also\nendeavored farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture, there is\nhowever one part of Athena's character which it would have been\nirrelevant to dwell upon there, yet which I must not wholly leave\nunnoticed.\n\nAs the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its\nbeneficent calm, and necessary tempest other storm deities (as\nChrysaor and Aeolus) being invested with a subordinate and more or\nless malignant function, which is exclusively their own, and is\nrelated to that of Athena as the power of Mars is related to hers\nin war. So also Virgil makes her able to wield the lightning\nherself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the intervention of\nAeolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral authority over\ncalmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles, as she\nincites Tydides; her physical power over the air being always\nhinted correlatively. She grasps Achilles by his hair--as the wind\nwould lift it--softly,\n\n    \"It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair,\n    Like a meadow gale in spring\"\n\nShe does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Diomed; but seizes\nit in both her hands, and casts it aside, with a sense of making\nit vain, like chaff in the wind;--to the shout of Achilles, she\nadds her own voice of storm in heaven--but in all cases the moral\npower is still the principal one--most beautifully in that seizing\nof Achilles by the hair, which was the talisman of his life\n(because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he returned in\nsafety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' tomb, he, knowingly,\nyields up the hope of return to his country, and signifies that he\nwill die with his friend. Achilles and Tydides are, above all\nother heroes, aided by her in war, because their prevailing\ncharacters are the desire of justice, united in both, with deep\naffections; and, in Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, which\nis the real root of his passionate anger Ulysses is her favorite\nchiefly in her office as the goddess of conduct and design.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE IV.\n\nPage 81.\n\n\n\"Geometrical limitations.\"\n\nIT is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full\nillustration, to express the complete relations of crystalline\nstructure, which dispose minerals to take, at different times,\nfibrous, massive, or foliated forms; and I am afraid this chapter\nwill be generally skipped by the reader: yet the arrangement\nitself will be found useful, if kept broadly in mind; and the\ntransitions of state are of the highest interest, if the subject\nis entered upon with any earnestness. It would have been vain to\nadd to the scheme of this little volume any account of the\ngeometrical forms of crystals an available one, though still far\ntoo difficult and too copious, has been arranged by the Rev. Mr.\nMitchell, for Orr's \"Circle of the Sciences;\" and, I believe, the\n\"nets\" of crystals, which are therein given to be cut out with\nscissors and put prettily together, will be found more conquerable\nby young ladies than by other students. They should also, when an\nopportunity occurs, be shown, at any public library, the diagram\nof the crystallization of quartz referred to poles, at p. 8 of\nCloizaux's \"Manuel de Mineralogie;\" that they may know what work\nis; and what the subject is.\n\nWith a view to more careful examination of the nascent states of\nsilica, I have made no allusion in this volume to the influence of\nmere segregation, as connected with the crystalline power. It has\nonly been recently, during the study of the breccias alluded to in\npage 186, that I have fully seen the extent to which this singular\nforce often modifies rocks in which at first its influence might\nhardly have been suspected; many apparent conglomerates being in\nreality formed chiefly by segregation, combined with mysterious\nbrokenly-zoned structures, like those of some malachites. I hope\nsome day to know more of these and several other mineral phenomena\n(especially of those connected with the relative sizes of\ncrystals), which otherwise I should have endeavored to describe in\nthis volume.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE V.\n\nPage 168.\n\n\n\"St. Barbara.\"\n\nI WOULD have given the legends of St. Barbara, and St. Thomas, if\nI had thought it always well for young readers to have everything\nat once told them which they may wish to know. They will remember\nthe stories better after taking some trouble to find them; and the\ntext is intelligible enough as it stands. The idea of St. Barbara,\nas there given, is founded partly on her legend in Peter de\nNatahbus, partly on the beautiful photograph of Van Eyck's picture\nof her at Antwerp: which was some time since published at Lille.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE VI.\n\nPage 227.\n\n\n\"King of the Valley of Diamonds.\"\n\nISABEL interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly bid to hold\nher tongue; which gave rise to some talk, apart, afterwards,\nbetween L. and Sibyl, of which a word or two may be perhaps\nadvisably set down.\n\nSIBYL. We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if it don't mind: I was\nglad you stopped her, and yet sorry, for she wanted so much to ask\nabout the Valley of Diamonds again, and she has worked so hard at\nit, and made it nearly all out by herself. She recollected\nElisha's throwing in the meal, which nobody else did.\n\nL. But what did she want to ask?\n\nSIBYL. About the mulberry trees and the serpents; we are all\nstopped by that. Won't you tell us what it means?\n\nL. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, should\nbe the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.\n\nSIBYL. And yet how often you complain of other people for not\nsaying what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three\nstone steps to purgatory, for instance!\n\nL. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at, but mine\nmatters nothing at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence\nso I speak it as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you\nlike of the serpent forests I could have helped you to find out\nwhat they were, by giving a little more detail, but it would have\nbeen tiresome.\n\nSIBYL. It is much more tiresome not to find out Tell us, please,\nas Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.\n\nL. There is no stupidity, you could not possibly do more than\nguess at anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least,\nmight have recollected what first dyed the mulberry.\n\nSIBYL. So I did, but that helped little, I thought of Dante's\nforest of suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed\nthat.\n\nL. No! If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it,\nto beat into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of\nsouls in trees is as old as the world; or at least, as the world\nof man. And I DID mean that there were souls in those dark\nbranches,--the souls of all those who had perished in misery\nthrough the pursuit of riches, and that the river was of their\nblood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley. Then I\nmeant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived carelessly\nand wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins forgiven\nby the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have seven\ncrimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they\nare proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the\nchief causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness\nand absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing\nserpents. And the worms are the souls of the common money getters\nand traffickers, who do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain\nhabitually by the distress or foolishness of others (as you see\nthe butchers have been gaining out of the panic at the cattle\nplague, among the poor),--so they are made to eat the dark leaves,\nand spin, and perish.\n\nSIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress\nthe poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where\nare they?\n\nL. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the\ngold, and make the grave dust of the valley I believe so, at\nleast, for no one ever sees those souls anywhere.\n\n(SIBYL ceases questioning.)\n\nISABEL (who has crept up to her side without any one seeing). Oh,\nSibyl, please ask him about the fireflies!\n\nL. What, you there, mousie! No; I won't tell either Sibyl or you\nabout the fireflies, nor a word more about anything else you ought\nto be little fireflies yourselves, and find your way in twilight\nby your own wits.\n\nISABEL. But you said they burned, you know?\n\nL. Yes; and you may be fireflies that way too, some of you, before\nlong, though I did not mean that. Away with you, children. You\nhave thought enough for to-day.\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE TO SECOND EDITION\n\n\nSentence out of letter from May (who is staying with Isabel just\nnow at Cassel), dated 15th June, 1877:--\n\n\"I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl who is staying\nhere, and she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the\nfireflies, and we both want to know so much.--Please be a very\nnice old Lecturer, and tell us, won't you?\"\n\nWell, May, you never were a vain girl; so could scarcely guess\nthat I meant them for the light, unpursued vanities, which yet\nblind us, confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late\ninto Siena, the fireflies were flying high on a stormy sirocco\nwind,--the stars themselves no brighter, and all their host\nseeming, at moments, to fade as the insects faded.","title":"The Ethics of the Dust","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":52187}