Ethics of the Dust TEN LECTURES LITTLE HOUSEWIVES THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLISATION RUSKIN. iJ\A.uhael Ernest Sadler' llmversttu Colleqi Oxford le-- THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES E \ G THE ETHICS OF THE DUST The Ethics of the Dust TEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION KY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., HONORAKY STVDKNT OK ( UHIST CHfK^ H, AND SLADK IKOFEPSOR OF FINE AKT. SECOA'D EDITION GEORGE ALLEN SUNNysIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT 1877 [The right 0/ tra/islation is reseizied.] Primed l)y IIu/cll. \V;iisoi,, .-i„ut wh}' do you want me to tell you true, 7 lie Valley of Diamonds. 7 any more than the man who wrote the ' Arabian Nights ' ? Isabel. Because — because we like to know about real things; and you can tell us, and we can't ask the man who wrote the stories. L. What do you call real things } Isabel. Now, you know ! Things that really arc. L. Whether you can see them or not } Isabel, Yes, if somebody else saw them. L. But if nobody has ever seen them t Isabel {evading the point). Well, but, >-ou know, if there were a real Valley of Diamonds, somebody must have seen it. L. You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel. Many people go to real places, and never see them; and many people pass through this valley, and never see it. Florrie. What stupid people they must be ! L. No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the people who do see it. May. I think I know where it is. Isabel. Tell us more about it, and then we'll guess. L. Well. There's a great broad road, by a river-side, leading up into it. May {gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last word). Does the road really go /// } 8 The Valley of Diamonds. L. You think it should go down into a valley ? No, it goes up ; this is a valley among the hills, and it is as high as the clouds, and is often full of them ; so that even the people who most want to see it, cannot, always. Isabel. And what is the river beside the road like ? L. It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows over diamond sand — only the water is thick and red. Isabel. Red water } L. It isn't all water. May. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just now ; I want to hear about the \alley. L. So the entrance to it is very wide, under a steep rock ; only such numbers of people are always trying to get in, that they keep jostling each other, and manage it but slowly. Some weak ones are pushed back, and never get in at all ; and make great moaning as they go away : but perhaps they are none the worse in the end. May. And when one gets in, what is it like } L. It is up and down, broken kind of ground : the road stops directly ; and there are great dark rocks, covered all over with wild gourds and wild vines ; the gourds, if you cut them, are red, with black seeds, like water-melons, and look ever so nice ; and the people of the place make a red pottage The Valley of Diamonds. 9 of them : but you must take care not to cat any if you ever want to leave the valley, (though I believe putting plenty of meal in it makes it wholesome). Then the wild vines have clusters of the colour of amber ; and the people of the country say they are the grape of Eshcol ; and sweeter than honey : but indeed, if anybody else tastes them, they are like gall. Then there are thickets of bramble, so thorny that they would be cut away directly, anywhere else ; but here they are covered with little cinque-foiled blossoms of pure silver ; and, for berries, they have clusters of rubies. Dark rubies, which you only sec are red after gathering them. But you may fancy what blackberry parties the children have ! Only they get their frocks and hands sadly torn. Lily. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as blackberries do } L. No ; but I'll tell you what spots them — the mulberries. There are great forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silkworms, some munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at work; and some spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever saw ; and, wherever they fall, they stain a deep red ; and nothing ever washes it out again. And it is their juice, soaking through the grass, which makes the river so red, because all its springs are in this wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as lO The Valley of Diavionds. if in pain, like old olive branches ; and their leaves are dark. And it is in these forests that the serpents are ; but nobody is afraid of them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are wreathed about the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly ; and they are singing serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds are in ours. Flqrrie. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now. L. You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, if you were there. The serpents would not bite you ; the only fear would be of your turning into one ! Florrie. Oh, dear, but that's worse. L. You wouldn't think so if you really were turned into one, Florrie ; you would be very proud of your crest. And as long as you were yourself, (not that you could get there if you remained quite the little Florrie you are now), you would like to hear the serpents sing. They hiss a little through it, like the cicadas in Italy ; but they keep good time, and sing delightful melodies ; and most of them have seven heads, with throats which each take a note of the octave ; so that they can sing chords — it is very fine indeed. And the fireflies fly round the edge of the forests all the night long ; you wade in fireflies, they make the fields look like a lake trcmb- ding with reflection of stars ; but you must take care The Valley of Diainoiids. 1 1 not to toucli them, for they are not like Italian fire- flies, but burn, like real sparks. Florrie. I don't like it at all ; I'll never go there. L. I hope not, Florrie ; or at least that you will get out again if you do. And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these serpent forests there are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a labyrinth, winding always higher and higher, till the gold is all split asunder by wedges of ice ; and glaciers, welded, half of ice seven times frozen, and half of gbld seven times frozen, hang down from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters, like the Cretan arrowheads ; and into a mixed dust of snow and gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able to lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a burial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of golden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one, and are buried there : — yet, over the drifted graves, those who are spared climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path ; — for at the end of it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his throne : and beside him, (but it is only a false vision), spectra of creatures like themselves, set on thrones, from which they seem to look down on all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And on the canop}- 1 2 TJic Valley of Diamonds. of his throne there is an inscription in fieiy letters, which they strive to read, but cannot ; for it is written in words which are Hke the words of all languages, and yet are of none. Men say it is more like their own tongue to the English than it is to any other nation ; but the only record of it is by an Italian, who heard the king himself cry it as a war cry, ' Pape Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe.' * Sibyl. But do they all perish there .? You said there was a way through the valley, and out of it. L. Yes ; but few find it. If any of them keep to the grass paths, where the diamonds are swept aside ; and hold their hands over their eyes so as not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward gradually to a place where one sees a little opening in the golden rocks. You were at Chamouni last year, Sibyl ; did your guide chance to show you the pierced rock of the Aiguille du Midi } Sibyl. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva on Monday night ; and it rained all Tuesday ; and we had to be back at Geneva again, early on Wed- nesday morning. L. Of course. That is the way to sec a country in a Sibylline manner, by inner consciousness : but you might have seen the pierced rock in your dri\'C up, or down, if the clouds broke : not that there is • Dante, Inf. 7. I. TJie Valley of Diamonds. \% much to see in it ; one of the crags of the aiguille- edge, on the southern slope of it, is struck sharply through, as by an awl, into a little eyelet hole ; which }'ou may see, seven thousand feet above the valley, (as the clouds flit past behind it, or leave the sky), first white, and then dark blue. Well, there's just such an e\'clet hole in one of the upper crags of the Diamond Valley ; and, from a distance, you think that it is no bigger than the eye of a needle. But if you get up to it, they say you may drive a loaded camel through it, and that there are fine things on the other side, but I have never spoken with anybody who had been through. Sibyl. I think we understand it now. W'e will try to write it down, and think of it. L. Meantime, Florrie, though all that I have been telling you is very true, yet you must not think the sort of diamonds that people w.ear in rings and neck- laces are found lying about on the grass. Would you like to see how they really are found .'' Florrie. Oh, yes — yes. L. Isabel — or Lily — run up to my room and fetch me the little box with a glass lid, out of the top drawer of the chest of drawers. {Race betiveen Lily and ISABEL.) {Re-enter Isabel ivith the box, very tnueh out of breath. LiLY behind.) 14 The Valky of Dia7nonds. L. Why, you never can beat Lily in a race on the stairs, can you, Isabel ? Isabel {panting). Lily — beat me — ever so far — but she gave me — the box — to carry in. L. Take off the lid, then ; gently. FlorriE {after peeping in, disappointed). There's only a great ugly brown stone ! L. Not much more than that, certainly, Florrie, if people were wise. But look, it is not a single stone ; but a knot of pebbles fastened together by gravel : and in the gravel, or compressed sand, if you look close, you will see grains of gold glittering every- where, all through ; and then, do you see these two white beads, which shine, as if they had been covered with grease ? Florrie. May I touch them ? L. Yes ; you will find they are not greasy, only very smooth. Well, those are the fatal jewels ; native here in their dust with gold, so that you may see, cradled here together, the two great enemies of man- kind, — the strongest of all malignant physical powers that have tormented our race. Sibyl. Is that really so ? I know they do great harm ; but do they not also do great good } L. My dear child, what good .'' Was any woman, do you suppose, ever the better for possessing diamiOnds .'' but how many have been made base, The Valley of Diamonds. 15 frivolous, and miserable by desiring them ? Was ever man the better for having coffers full of gold ? But who shall measure the guilt that is incurred to fill them ? Look into the history of any civilised nations ; analyse, with reference to this one cause of crime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious life. Every other temptation is at last concentrated into this ; pride, and lust, and envy, and anger, all give up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole world is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve their Christ ; but they sell Him. Sibyl. But surely that is the fault of human nature } it is not caused by the accident, as it were, of there being a pretty metal, like gold, to be found by digging. If people could not find that, would they not find something else, and quarrel for it instead } L. No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a time, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions, the national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not natural to man — generosity is ; but covetousness must be ex- cited by a special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma ; and the essential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness is, that it shall be a beautiful thing which can be retained witlioiit a use. The moment we can use our possessions to any good 1 6 The Valley of Diamonds. purpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating that use to others rises side by side with our power. If }'ou can read a book rightly, you will want others to hear it ; if you can enjoy a picture rightly, you will want others to see it : learn how to manage a horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to make your subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, or sailors : you will never be able to see the fine instrument you are master of, abused ; but, once fix your desire on anything useless, and all the purest pride and folly in )-our heart will mix with the desire, and make you at last wholly inhuman, a mere ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a cuttle-fish. Sibyl. But surely, these two beautiful things, gold and diamonds, must have been appointed to some good purpose .'' L. Quite conceivably so, my dear : as also earth- quakes and pestilences ; but of such ultimate pur- poses we can have no sight. The practical, imme- diate office of the earthquake and pestilence is to slay us, like moths ; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live out of their way. So, the practical, immediate office of gold and diamonds is the multiplied de- struction of souls, (in whatever sense you have been taught to understand that phrase) ; and the paralysis of wholesome human effort and thought on the face of God's earth : and a wise nation will live out of The Valley of Diaj)iO)ids. 1 7 the way of them. The money which the EngHsh habitually spend in cutting diamonds would, in ten years, if it were applied to cutting rocks instead, leave no dangerous reef nor difficult harbour round the whole island coast. Great Britain would be a diamond worth cutting, indeed, a true piece of regalia. {^Leaves this to their thoughts foi' a little zvhile) Then, also, we poor mineralogists might sometimes have the chance of seeing a fine crystal of diamond unhacked by the jeweller. Sibyl. Would it be more beautiful uncut .-' L. No; butof infiniteinterest. We might even come to know something about the making of diamonds. Sibyl. I thought the chemists could make them already } L. In very small black crystals, yes; but no one knows how they are formed where they are found ; or if indeed they are formed there at all. These, in my hand, look as if they had been swept down with the gravel and gold ; only we can trace the gravel and gold to their native rocks, but not the diamonds. Read the account given of the diamond in any good work on mineralogy; — you will find nothing but lists of localities of gravel, or conglomerate rock (which is only an old indurated gravel). Some say it was once a vegetable gum ; it may have been charred wood ; but what one would like to know is, mainh', wh)- 2 i8 ' The Valley of Diamonds. charcoal should make itself into diamonds in India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale. Sibyl. Are they wholly the same, then ? L. There is a little iron mixed with our black lead; but nothing to hinder its crystallisation. Your pencils in fact are all pointed with formless diamond, though they would be H H H pencils to purpose, if it crystallised. Sibyl. But what is crystallisation ? L. A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, and it has been tea time these two hours. What thoughtless things girls are ! Sibyl. Yes, we are ; but we want to know, for all that. L. My dear, it would take a week to tell you. Sibyl. Well, take it, and tell us. L. But nobody knows anything about it. Sibyl, Then tell us something that nobody knows. L. Get along \\ith )-ou, and tell Dora to make tea. (77/6' Jionsc rises ; but of course the LECruRER wafitcd to be forced to lecture again, and ivas) LECTURE II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. LFXTURE II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. In the large Schoolroom, to luhich everybody has been summoned by ringing of the great bell. L. So you have all actually come to hear about crystallisation ! I cannot conceive why, unless the little ones think that the discussion may involve some reference to sugar-candy. {Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of council. Isabel froivns severely at L., and shakes her head violently }f My dear children, if you knew it, you are your- selves, at this moment, as you sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eyes of a mineralogist, but a lovely group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by atomic forces. And even admitting you to be something more, you have certainly been crystallising without knowing it. Did not I hear a great hurrying and whispering, ten minutes ago, when \-ou were late in from the playground ; and thought you would not all be quietly seated by the time I was ready : — besides some discussion about places — some- 22 The Pyramid Builders. thing about ' it's not being fair that the little ones should always be nearest ?' Well, you were then all being crystallised. When you ran in from the gar- den, and against one another in the passages, you were in what mineralogists would call a state of solution, and gradual confluence ; when you got seated in those orderly rows, each in her proper place, you became crystalline. That is just what the atoms of a mineral do, if they can, whenever they get disordered : they get into order again as soon as may be. I hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, ' But we know our places ; how do the atoms know theirs } And sometimes we dispute about our places ; do the atoms — (and, besides, we don't like being compared to atoms at all) — never dispute about theirs .' ' Two wise questions these, if you had a mind to put them ! it was long before I asked them myself, of myself And I will not call you atoms any more. May I call you — let mc see — - ' primary molecules } ' {General dissent indicated in subdned bnt decisive vinrmnrs) No ! not even, in familiar Saxon, ' dust ' .'' {Pause, ivith expression on faces of sorroivful dojtbf ; \a\.\ gives voice to the general senti- ment in a timid ' Please don't!) No, children, I won't call you that ; and mind, as TJic Pyramid Builders. 23 you grow up, that you do not get into an idle and wicked habit of calling yourselves that. You are something better than dust, and have other duties to do than ever dust can do ; and the bonds of affection you will enter into are better than merely ' getting into order.' But see to it, on the other hand, that you always behave at least as well as 'dust;' remem- ber, it is only on compulsion, and while it has no free permission to do as it likes, that it ever gets out of order : but sometimes, with some of us, the compul- sion has to be the other way — hasn't it .' i^Re- monstratory tukispers, expressive of opinio7i that the Lecturer is beco^ning too personal.) I'm not looking at anybody in particular — indeed I am not. Nay, if you blush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking } We'll go back to the atoms. ' How do they know their places .-* ' you asked, or should have asked. Yes, and they have to do much more than know them : they have to find their way to them, and that quietly and at once, without run- ning against each other. We may, indeed, state it briefly thus : — Suppose you have to build a castle, with towers and roofs and buttresses, out of bricks of a given shape, and that the.se bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the bottom, in utter confusion, upset out of carts at random. You would have to draw a great many 24 The Pyramid Builders. plans, and count all your bricks, and be sure you had enough for this and that tower, before you began, and then you would have to lay your founda- tion, and add layer by layer, in order, slowly. But how would you be astonished, in these melan- choly days, when children don't read children's books, nor believe any more in fairies, if suddenly a real benevolent fairy, in a bright brick-red gown, were to rise in the midst of the red bricks, and to tap the heap of them with her wand, and say: 'Bricks, bricks, to your places ! ' and then you saw in an instant the whole heap rise in the air, like a swarm of red bees, and — you have been used to see bees make a honey- comb, and to think that strange enough, but now you would see the honeycomb make itself ! — You want to ask something, Florrie, by the look of your eyes. Florrie. Are they turned into real bees, with stings .-* L. No, Florrie ; you are only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw the slates flying from the roof the other day in the storm ; only those slates didn't seem to know where they were going, and, besides, were going where they had no business : but my spell- bound bricks, though they have no wings, and what is worse, no heads and no eyes, yet find their wa\- in the air just where they should settle, into towers and •roofs, each flying to his place and fastening there The Pyramid Biiildtrs. 25 at the right moment, so that ever)' other one shall fit to him in his turn. Lily. But who are the fairies, then, who build the crystals ? L. There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds much more than crystals ; but she builds these also. I dreamed that I saw her building a pyramid, the other day, as she used to do, for the Pharaohs. Isabel. But that was only a dream } L. Some dreams are truer than some wakings, Isabel ; but I won't tell it you unless you like. Isabel. Oh, please, please. L. You are all such wise children, there's no talking to you ; you won't believe anything. Lily. No, we are not wise, and we will believe anything, when you say we ought. L. Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you recollect that evening when we had been looking at your old cave by Cuma;, and wondering why you didn't live there still: and then we wondered how old you were ; and Egypt said you wouldn't tell, and nobody else could tell but she ; and you laughed — I thought very gaily for a Sibyl — and said you would harness a flock of cranes for us, and we might fly over to Egypt if wc liked, and see. Sibyl. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out after all ! 26 TJie Pyramid Builders. L. Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubhng that third pyramid of hers ; * and making a new entrance into it ; and a fine entrance it was ! First, we had to go through an ante-room, which had both its doors blocked up with stones ; and then we had three granite portcullises to pull up, one after an- other : and the moment we had got under them, Egypt signed to somebody above ; and down they came again behind us, with a roar like thunder, only louder ; then we got into a passage fit for nobody but rats, and Egypt wouldn't go any further herself, but said we might go on if we liked ; and so we came to a hole in the pavement, and then to a granite trap- door — and then we thought we had gone quite far enough, and came back, and Egypt laughed at us. Egypt. You would not have had mc take my crown off, and stoop all the way down a passage fit only for rats .'' L. It was not the crown, Egypt — you know that very well. It was the flounces that would not let you go any farther. I suppose, however, you wear them as typical of the inundation of tlie Nile, so it is all right. Isabel. Why didn't you take me with you } Where rats can cro, mice can. I wouldn't have come back. t)'-'i * Note i. The Py7'ai)iid Builders. zf L. No, moLisic ; you would have gone on by yourself, and you might have waked one of Pasht's cats,* and it would have eaten you. I was very glad you were not there. But after all this, I suppose the innagination of the heavy granite blocks and the underground ways had troubled me, and dreams are often shaped in a strange opposition to the impres- sions that have caused them ; and from all that we had been reading in Bunsen about stones that couldn't be lifted with levers, I began to dream about stones that lifted themselves with wings. Sibyl. Now you must just tell us all about it. L. I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose clay the bricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis.t They had just been all finished, and were lying by the lake margin, in long ridges, like waves. It was near evening ; and as I looked towards the sunset, I saw a thing like a dark pillar standing where the rock of the desert stoops to the Nile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, and wondered at it ; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like the form of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided, like a pillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance past it, towards the sun ; and saw a silver * Note iii. f Note ii. 28 The Pyramia Builders. cloud, which was of all the clouds closest to the sun, {and in one place crossed it), draw itself back from the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot towards the dark pillar ; leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of a bow. And I thought it was lightning; but when it came near the shadowy pillar, it sank slowly down beside it, and changed into the shape of a woman, very beautiful, and with a strength of deep calm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feet with a white robe ; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which I had seen across the sun ; but all the golden ripples of it had become plumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of a vulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a weaver's shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it, and in her left hand, arrows, tipped with fire. Isabel {clapping her hands). Oh ! it was Neith, it was Neith ! I know now. L. Yes ; it was Neith herself ; and as the two great spirits came nearer to mc, I saw they were the Brother and Sister — the pillared shadow was the Greater Pthah.* And I heard them speak, and the sound of their words was like a distant singing. I could not understand the words one by one ; yet * Note iii. The Pyi'a^nid Builders. 29 their sense came to me ; and so I knew that Neith had come down to sec her brother's A\-ork, and the work that he had put into the mind of the king to make his servants do. And she was displeased at it ; because she saw only pieces of dark clay ; and no porphyry, nor marble, nor any fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon. And she blamed her brother, and said, ' Oh, Lord of truth ! is this then thy will, that men should mould only four-square pieces of clay : and the forms of the gods no more } ' Then the Lord of truth sighed, and said, ' Oh ! sister, in truth they do not love us; why should they set up our images } Let them do \\hat they may, and not lie — let them make their clay four-square ; and labour ; and perish.' Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, ' Oh, Lord of truth ! why should they love us? their love is vain ; or fear us } for their fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we lived for ever.' But the Lord of truth answered, ' They know, and yet they know not. Let them keep silence ; for their silence only is truth.' But Neith answered, ' Brother, wilt thou also make league with Death, because Death is true } Oh ! thou potter, who hast cast these human things from 30 The Pyramid Builders. thy wheel, many to dishonour, and few to honour ; wilt thou not let them so much as see my face ; but slay them in slavery ? ' But Pthah only answered, ' Let them build, sister, let them build.' And Neith answered, ' What shall they build, if I build not with them ? ' And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw suddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced. 'Oh, Brother!' she said at last, 'what is this vanity.'' If I, who am Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst thou mock them, who art Lord of truth .^ ' But Pthah answered, ' They thought to bind me; and they shall be bound. They shall labour in the fire for vanity.' And Neith said, looking at the sand, ' Brother, there is no true labour here — there is only weary life and wasteful death.' And Pthah answered, 'Is it not truer labour, sister, than thy sculpture of dreams t ' The Pyramid Builders. 3 i Then Neith smiled ; and stopped suddenly. She looked to the sun ; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the desert. Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that lay, each with its blue shadow, by the lake shore. ' Brother,' she said, ' how long will this pyramid of thine be in building .? ' * Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before the summit is laid.' ' Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy children to labour,' answered Neith. ' Look ! I must follow Phre beyond Atlas ; ghall I build your pyramid for you before he goes down.-*' And Pthah answered, * Yea, sister, if thou canst put thy winged shoulders to such work.' And Neith drew herself to her height ; and I heard a clashing pass through the plumes of her wings, and the asp stood up on her helmet, and fire gathered in her eyes. And she took one of the flaming arrows out of the sheaf in her left hand, and stretched it out over the heaps of clay. And they rose up like flights of locusts, and spread themselves in the air, so that it grew dark in a moment. Then Neith designed them places with her arrow point ; and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid level at morning. Then Neith pointed with her arrow to the north, and to the south, and to the east, and to the west, and the flying motes of earth drew asunder 32 The Pyi'mnid Bicilders. into four great ranked crowds ; and stood, one in the north, and one in the south, and one in the east, and one in the west — one against another. Then Neith spread her wings wide for an instant, and closed them with a sound hke the sound of a rushing sea ; and waved her hand towards the foundation of the pyramid, where it was laid on the brow of the desert. And the four flocks drew together and sank down, like sea-birds settling to a level rock ; and when they met, there was a sudden flame, as broad as the pyramid, and as high as the clouds ; and it dazzled me ; and I closed my eyes for an instant ; and when I looked again, the pyramid stood on its rock, perfect ; and purple with the light from the edge of the sinking sun. The younger Children {variously pleased). I'm so glad ! How nice ! But what did Pthah say 'i L. Neith did not wait to hear what he would say. When I turned back to look at her, she was gone ; and I only saw the level white cloud form itself again, close to the arch of the sun as it sank. And as the last edge of the sun disappeared, the form of Pthah faded into a mighty shadow, and so passed away. Egypt. And was Ncith's pyramid left } L. Yes ; but you could not think, Egypt, what a TJic Pyramid Builders. t^t, strange feeling of utter loneliness came over me when the presences of the two gods passed away. It seemed as if I had never known what it was to be alone before ; and the unbroken line of the desert was terrible. Egypt. I used to feel that, when I was queen : sometimes I had to carve gods, for company, all over my palace. I would fain have seen real ones, if I could. L. But listen a moment yet, for that was not quite all my 'dream. The twilight drew swiftly to the dark, and I could hardly see the great pyramid ; when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the air ; and a horned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on the sand at my feet, with a blow like the beat of a hammer. Then it stood up on its hind claws, and waved its pincers at me : and its fore claws became strong arms,and hands; one grasping real iron pincers, and the other a huge hammer ; and it had a helmet on its head, without any eyelet holes, that I could see. And its two hind claws became strong crooked legs, with feet bent inwards. And so there stood b)' me a dwarf, in glossy black armour, ribbed and em- bossed like a beetle's back, leaning on his hammer. And I could not speak for wonder ; but he spoke with a murmur like the dying away of a beat upon a bell. He said, 'I will make Ncith's great pyramid small. 34 The Pyramid Builders, I am the lower Pthah ; and have power over fire. I can wither the strong things, and strengthen the weak : and everything that is great I can make small, and everything that is little I can make great.' Then he turned to the angle of the pyramid and limped towards it. And the pyramid grew deep purple ; and then red like blood, and then pale rose- colour, like fire. And I saw that it glowed with fire from within. And the lower Pthah touched it Avith the hand that held the pincers ; and it sank down like the sand in an hour-glass, — then drew itself to- gether, and sank, still, and became nothing, it seemed to me ; but the armed dwarf stooped down, and took it into his hand, and brought it me, saying, ' Every- thing that is great I can make like this pyramid ; and give into men's hands to destroy.' And I saw that he had a little pyramid in his hand, with as many courses in it as the large one ; and built like that, — only so small. And because it glowed still, I was afraid to touch it; but Pthah said, 'Touch it — for I have bound the fire within it, so that it cannot burn.' So I touched it, and took it into my own hand ; and it was cold ; only red, like a ruby. And Pthah laughed, and became like a beetle again, antl buried himself in the sand, fiercely ; throwing it back over his shoulders. And it seemed to me as if he would draw me down with him into the sand; and I started back, and woke. The Pyramid Builders. 35 holding the httle pyramid so fast in my hand that it hurt me. Egypt. Holding ^VIIAT in your hand t L, The little pyramid. EciYPT. Neith's pyramid ? L. Neith's, I believe: though not built for Asychis. I know only that it is a little rosy transparent pyra- mid, built of more courses of bricks than I can count, it being made so small. You don't believe me, of course, Egyptian infidel ; but there it is. {Giving- crystal of rose Fluor) {Confused examination by croivded audience, over each other s shoidders and -under each other s arms. Disappointment begins to manifest itself) Sibyl {not quite knoiving xvhy she and others are disappointed). But )'ou showed us this the other day ! L, Yes ; but you would not look at it the other day. Sibyl. But was all that fine dream only about this } L. What finer thing could a dream be about than this } It is small, if >-ou will ; but when you begin to think of things rightly, the ideas of smallness and largeness pass away. The making of this pyramid was in reality just as wonderful as the dream I have been telling you, and just as incomprehensible. It was not, I suppose, as swift, but quite as grand things arc done as swiftly. When Neith makes crystals of 36 The Pyramid Builders. snow, it needs a great deal more marshalling of the atoms, by her flaming arrows, than it does to make crystals like this one ; and that is done in a moment. Egypt. But how you do puzzle us ! Why do you say Neith does it } You don't mean that she is a real spirit, do you } L. What /mean, is of little consequence. What the Egyptians meant, who called her ' Neith,' — or Homer, who called her ' Athena,' — or Solomon, who called her by a word which the Greeks render as ' Sophia,' you must judge for yourselves. But her testimony is always the same, and all nations have received it : ' I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight ; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.' Mary. But is not that only a personification ? ■ L. If it be, what will )'ou gain by unpersonifying it, or what right have you to do so .'' Cannot you accept the image given )ou, in its life ; and listen, like children, to the words which chiefly belong to you as children : ' I love them that love me, and those that seek mc early shall find me ' .'' ( TJicy are all quiet for a minute or tivo ; questions begitu to appear in their eyes.) I cannot talk to )'Ou any more to-day. Take that rose-crystal away with joii, and think. LECTURE III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE. LECTURE III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE. A very dull Lecture, 7vilfnlly brought upon themselves by the elder children. Some of the young ones have, however, managed to get in by mistake. Scene, the Schoolroom. L. So I am to stand up here merely to be asked questions, to-day, Miss Mary, am I ? Mary. Yes ; and you must answer them plainly ; without telling us any more stories. You are quite spoiling the children : the poor little things' heads are turning round like kaleidoscopes ; and they don't know in the least what you mean. Nor do we old ones, either, for that matter : to-day you must really tell us nothing but facts. L. I am sworn : but you won't like it, a bit. Mary. Now, first of all, what do you mean by ' bricks ' } — Are the smallest particles of minerals all of some accurate shape, like bricks } L. I do not know, Miss Mary ; I do not even know if anybody knows. The smallest atoms which 40 The Crystal Life. are visibly and practically put together to make large crystals, may better be described as ' limited in fixed directions ' than as ' of fixed forms.' But I can tell you nothing clear about ultimate atoms : you will find the idea of little bricks, or, perhaps, of little spheres, available for all the uses you will have to put it to. Mary. Well, it's very provoking ; one seems ^always to be stopped just when one is coming to 'the very thing one wants to know. L. No, Mary, for we should not wish to know anything but what is easily and assuredly knowable. There's no end to it. If I could show you, or myself, a group of ultimate atoms, quite clearly, in this mag- nifying glass, we should both be presently vexed because we could not break them in two pieces, and see their insides. Mary. Well then, next, what do you mean by the flying of the bricks ? What is it the atoms do, that is like flying } L. When they arc dissolved, or uncrystallised, they are really separated from each other, like a swarm of gnats in the air, or like a shoal of fish in the sea ; — generally at about equal distances. In currents of solutions, or at different depths of them, one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms than another ; but, on the whole, you may think of them as equidistant, like the spots in the print of your gown. If they are separated by force of heat The Crystal Li/e. 41 only, the substance is said to be melted ; if they are separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by water, they are said to be ' dissolved.' Note this distinction carefully, all of you. Dora. I will be very particular. When next you tell me there isn't sugar enough in your tea, I will say, ' It is not \qX. dissolved, sir.' L. I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora ; and that's the present parliament, if the members get ioo saucv\ (Dora folds her hands and casts doivn her eyes) L. {proceeds in state). Now, Miss Mary, )'ou know already, I believe, that nearly everything will melt, under a sufficient heat, like wax. Limestone melts (under pressure) ; sand melts ; granite melts ; the lava of a volcano is a mixed mass of many kinds of rocks, melted : and any melted substance nearly always, if not always, crystallises as it cools ; the more slowly, the more perfectly. Water melts at what we call the freezing, but might just as wisely, though not as conveniently, call the melting, point ; and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all known crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and will crystallise, if you let it cool slowly enough, in stars, much like snow. Gold needs more heat to melt it, but crystallises also exquisitely, as I will presently show you. Arsenic and sulphur crystallise from their vapours. Now in any of these cases, either 42 The Cjystal Life. of melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies, the particles are usually separated from each other, either by heat, or by an intermediate substance ; and in crystallising they are both brought nearer to each other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as possible : the essen- tial part of the business being not the bringing to- gether, but the packing. Who packed your trunk for you, last holidays, Isabel ? Isabel. Lily does, always. L. And how much can you allow for Lily's good packing, in guessing what will go into the trunk } Isabel. Oh ! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always gets everything in. Lily. Ah ! but, Isey, if }-ou only knew what a time it takes ! and since you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't do anything with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know. L. Yes, Lil}', it would be well if she only knew what a time it takes ; and I wish any of us knew what a time crvstallisation takes, for that is con- summatcly fine packing. The particles of the rock are thrown down, just as Isabel brings her things — in a heap ; and innumerable Lilies, not of the valley, but of the rock, come to pack them. Ikit it takes such a time ! I lowcvcr, the best — out and out the best — way of understanding the thing, is to crystallise yourselves. Tlic Crystal Life. 43 The Audien'CE. Ourselves ! L. Yes ; not merely as you did the other da}-, carelesslv, on the schoolroom forms ; but carefullv and finel}', out in the playground. You can play at crystallisation there as much as you please. Kathleen and Jessie. Oh ! how } — how } L. First, you must put yourselves together, as close as }-ou can, in the middle of the grass, and form, for first practice, any figure you like. Jessie. Any dancing figure, do you mean } L. No ; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you like, standing close together. You had better outline it first on the turf, with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly drawn ; then get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side, till you are all quite in it, and no empty space left. Dora. Crinoline and all .^ L. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline surface, unless )^ou pin it in ; and then you may make a polished crystal of yourselves. LiLV. Oh, we'll pin it in — we'll pin it in ! L. Then, when }-ou are all in the figure, let every one note her place, and who is next her on each side ; and let the outsiders count how main- places the}- stand from the corners. Kathleen. Yes, yes, — and then } L. Then you must scatter all o\-er the pla}-ground 44 'J-^i^ Crystal Life. — right over it from side to side, and end to end ; and put yourselves all at equal distances from each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it very accu- rately, but so as to be nearly equidistant ; not less than about three yards apart from each other, on every side. Jessie. We can easily cut pieces of string of equal length, to hold. And then } L. Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, at the same rate, towards the outlined figure in the middle. You had better sing as you walk ; that will keep you in good time. And as you close in towards it, let each take her place, and the next comers fit themselves in beside the first ones, till you are all in the figure again. Kathleen. Oh ! how we shall run against each other ! What fun it will be ! L. No, no, Miss Katie ; I can't allow any running against each other. The atoms never do that, what- ever human creatures do. You must all know your places, and find your way to them without jostling. Lily. J^ut how ever shall we do that .'* Isabel. Mustn't the ones in the middle be the nearest, and the outside ones farther off — when we go away to scatter, I mean ? L. Yes ; you must be very careful to keep your order ; you will soon find gut how to do it ; it is only The Crystal Li/c. 45 like soldiers forming square, except that each must stand still in her place as she reaches it, and the others come round her ; and you will have much more com- plicated figures, afterwards, to form, than squares. Isabel. I'll put a stone at my place ; then I shall know it. L. You might each nail a bit of paper to the turf, at your place, with your name upon it : but it would be of no use, for if you don't know your places, you will make a fine piece of business of it, while you are looking for your names. And, Isabel, if with a little head, and eyes, and a brain, (all of them very good and serviceable of their kind, as such things go), you think you cannot know your place without a stone at it, after examining it well, — how do you think each atom knows its place, when it never was there before, and there's no stone at it } Isabel. But does every atom know its place } L. How else could it get there t Mary. Are they not attracted into their places .' L. Cover a piece of paper with spots, at equal intervals ; and then imagine any kind of attraction you choose, or any law of attraction, to exist between the spots, and try how, on that permitted supposition, you can attract them into the figure of a Maltese croks, in the middle of the paper. Mary {Iiaving tried it). Yes ; I see that I cannot: 46 The Crystal Life. — one would need all kinds of attractions, in different ways, at different places. But you do not mean that the atoms are alive ? L. What is it to be alive ? Dora. There now ; you're, going to be provoking, I know. L. I do not see why it should be provoking to be asked what it is to be alive. Do you think you don't know whether you are alive or not .? (Isabel skips to the end of the room and back) L. Yes, Isabel, that's all very fine ; and you and I may call that being alive : but a modern philosopher calls it being in a 'mode of motion.' It requires a certain quantity of heat to take you to the side- board ; and exactly the same quantity to bring you back again. That's all. Isabel. No, it isn't. And besides, I'm not hot. L. I am, sometimes, at the way they talk. How- ever, you know, Isabel, you might have been a particle of a mineral, and )-ct have been carried round the room, or anywhere else, by chemical forces, in the liveliest way. Isabel. Yes ; but I wasn't carried : I carried myself. L. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what makes a thing alive, as what makes it a Self As soon as you are shut off from the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to be alive. Tlic Crystal Life. 47 Violet {indignant). Oh, surely — surely that can- not be so. Is not all the life of the soul in com- munion, not separation ? L. There can be no communion where there is no distinction. But we shall be in an abyss of meta- physics presently, if we don't look out ; and besides, we must not be too grand, to-day, for the younger children. We'll be grand, some day, by ourselves, if we must. ( The younger cliildre7i are not pleased, and prepare to remonstrate ; hut, knoiving by experience, that all eonversations in zchich the ivord ' coniniiniion ' occurs, are iinintclligible, tJunk better of it) Meantime, for broad answer about the atoms. I do not think we should use the word ' life,' of any energy which does not belong to a given form. A seed, or an tgg, or a young animal, are properly called ' alive ' with respect to the force belonging to those forms, which consistently developes that form, and no other. But the force which crystallises a mineral appears to be chiefly external, and it does not produce an entirely determinate and individual form, limited in size, but only an aggregation, in which some limiting laws must be observed. Mary. But I do not sec much difference, that way, between a crystal and a tree. L. Add, then, that the mode of the energy in a living thing implies a continual change in its 48 The Crystal Life. elements ; and a period for its end. So you may define life by its attached negative, death ; and stiU. more by its attached positiv^e, birth. But I won't be^ plagued any more about this, just now; if you choose to think the crystals alive, do, and welcome. Rocks have always been called * living ' in their native place. Mary. There's one question more ; then I've done, L. Only one } Mary. Only one. L. But if it is answered, won't it turn into two } Mary. No ; I think it will remain single, and be comfortable. L. Let me hear it. Mary. You know, we are to crystallise ourselves out of the whole playground. Now, what playground . have the minerals } Where are they scattered before, they are crystallised ; and where are the crystals generally made .-' L. That sounds to mc more like three question.s than one, Mary. If it is only one, it is a wide one. Mary. I did not say an)'thing about the width of it. L. Well, I must keep it within the best compass I can. When rocks either dry from a nioist state, or cool from a heated state, they necessarily alter in bulk ; and cracks, or open spaces, form in them in all The Crystal Life. 49 directions. These cracks must be filled up with solid matter, or the rock would eventually be- come a ruinous heap. So, sometimes by water, sometimes by vapour, sometimes nobody knows how, crystallisable matter is brought from some- where, and fastens itself in these open spaces, so as to bind the rock together again, with crystal cement. A vast quantity of hollows are formed in lavas by bubbles of gas, just as the holes are left in bread well baked. In process of time these cavities are generally filled with various crystals. Mary. But where does the crystallising sub- stance come from } L. Sometimes out of the rock itself ; sometimes from below or above, through the veins. The entire substance of the contracting rock may be filled with liquid, pressed into it so as to fill every pore ; — or with mineral vapour ; or it may be so charged at one place, and empty at another. There's no end to the ' may be's.' But all that you need fancy, for our present purpose, is that hollows in the rocks, like the caves in Derbyshire, are traversed by liquids or vapour containing certain elements in a more or less free or separate state, which crystallise on the cave walls. Sibyl. There now ; — Mary has had all her ques- tions answered : it's my turn to have mine. 4 50 The Crystal Life. L. Ah, there's a conspiracy among you, I see. I might have guessed as much. Dora. I'm sure you ask us questions enough ! How can you have the heart, when you disHke so to be asked them yourself 1 L. My dear child, if people do not answer questions, it does not matter how many they are asked, because they've no trouble with them. Now, when I ask you questions, I never expect to be answered ; but when you ask me, you always do ; and it's not fair. Dora. Very well, we shall understand, next time. Sibyl. No, but seriously, we all want to ask one thing more, quite dreadfully. L. And I don't want to be asked it, quite dread- fully ; but you'll have your own way, of course. Sibyl. We none of us understand about the lower Pthah. It was not merely yesterday ; but in all we have read about him in Wilkinson, or in any book, we cannot understand what the Egyptians put their god into that ugly little deformed shape for. L. Well, I'm glad it's that sort of question ; because I can answer anything I like, to that. Egypt. Anything you like will do (luitc well for us ; w c shall be pleased w ilh the answer, if you arc. L. I am not .so sure of that, most gracious queen ; for 1 mu.st begin by the statement that (jucens seem The Crystal Life. 51 to have disliked all sorts of work, in those days, as much as some queens dislike sewing to-day. Egypt. Now, it's too bad ! and just when I was trying to say the civilest thing I could ! L. But, Egypt, why did you tell mc you disliked sewing so .-• Egypt. Did not I show you how the thread cuts my fingers .^ and I always get cramp, somehow, in my neck, if I sew long. L. Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought everybody got cramp in their neck, if they sewed long ; and that thread always cut people's fingers. At all events, every kind of manual labour was despised both by them, and the Greeks ; and, while they owned the real good and fruit of it, they yet held it a degradation to all who practised it. Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, they perceived that the special practice necessary to bring any manual art to perfection strengthened the body dis- tortedly ; one energy or member gaining at the expense of the rest. They especially dreaded and despised any kind of work that had to be done near fire : yet, feeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as the basis of all other work, they expressed this mixed reverence and scorn in the varied types of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah. Sibyl. But what did you mean by making him 52 The Crystal Life. say ' Everything great I can make small, and every- thing small great ' ? L. I had my own separate meaning in that. We have seen in modern times the power of the lower Pthah developed in a separate way, which no Greek nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the cha- racter of pure and eyeless manual labour to conceive everything as subjected to it : and, in reality, to disgrace and diminish all that is so subjected ; ag- grandising itself, and the thought of itself, at the expense of all noble things. I heard an orator, and a good one too, at the Working Men's College, the other day, make a great point in a description of our railroads ; saying, with grandly conducted emphasis, 'They have made man greater, and the world less.' His working audience were mightily pleased ; the}- thought it so very fine a thing to be made bigger themselves ; and all the rest of the world less, I should have enjoyed asking them (but it would have been a pity — they were so pleased), how much less they would like to have the world made ; — and whether, at present, those of them really felt them- selves the biggest men, who lived in the least houses. SlBVL. But then, why did you make Pthah say that he could make weak things strong, and small things great .^ L. My dear, he is a boa.ster and sclf-assertor, by The Crystal Life. 53 nature ; but it is so far true. For instance, \vc used to have a fair in our neighbourliood — a very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such an one ; but if you look at the engraving of Turner's ' St. Catherine's Hill/ you will see what it was like. There were curious booths, carried on poles ; and peep-shows ; and music, with plenty of drums and cymbals ; and much barley-sugar and gingerbread, and the like ; and in the alleys of this fair the London populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion, very thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day ; he made the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like his own crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you don't look where you are going ; and he turned all the canvas into panes of glass, and put it up on his iron cross-poles ; and made all the little booths into one great booth ; — and people said it was very fine, and a new style of architecture ; and Mr. Dickens said nothing was ever like it in Fairy-land, which was very true. And then the little Pthah set to work to put' fine fairings in it ; and he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he could paint (because he had none himself), and he got the angels down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his gingerbread of old times ; and he sent for every- thing else he could think of, and put it in his booth. 54 T^he Crystal Life. There are the casts of Niobe and her children ; and the Chimpanzee ; and the wooden Caffres and New-Zealanders ; and the Shakespeare House ; and Le Grand Blondin, and Le Petit Blondin ; and Handel ; and Mozart ; and no end of shops and buns, and beer ; and all the little-Pthah-worshippers say, never was anything so sublime ! Sibyl. Now, do you mean to say you never go to these Crystal Palace concerts ? They're as good as good can be. L. I don't go to the thundering things with a million of bad voices in them. When I want a song, I get Julia Mannering and Lucy Bertram and Coun- sellor Pleydell to sing ' We be three poor Mariners ' to me ; then I've no headache next morning. But I do go to the smaller concerts, when I can ; for they are very good, as you say, Sibyl : and I always get a reserved seat somewhere near the orchestra, where I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum. Sibyl. Now do be serious, for one minute. L. I am serious — never was more so. You know one can't see the modulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration of the drummer's hand ; and it's lovely. Sii'.YL. V>w\. fancy going to a concert, not to hear, but to sec ! L. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite right thing, The Cry si a I Life. 55 I belic\c, is to go there to talk. I confess, ho\vc\cr, that in most music, when very well done, the doing of it is to me the chiefly interesting part of the business. I'm always thinking how good it would be for the fat, supercilious people, who care so little for their half-crown's worth, to be set to try and do a half- crown's worth of anything like it. Mary. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to the people of London } L. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear ; but they are spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the palace (as they call it) is a better place for them, by much, than the old fair ; and it is always there, instead of for three days only ; and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And good use may be made of the things in it, if you know how : but as for its teaching the people, it will teach them nothing but the lowest of the lower Pthah's work — nothing but hammer and tongs. I saw a wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the other da\'. Some unhappy metal-worker — I am not sure if it was not a metal-working firm — had taken three years to make a golden eagle. Sibyl. Of real gold } L. No •; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metals — it is no matter what. I meant a model of our chief l^ritish eagle. E\-cry feather was 56 The Crystal Life. made separately ; and every filament of every feather separately, and so joined on ; and all the quills modelled of the right length and right section, and at last the whole cluster of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't think much of my own drawing ; but take my proud word for once, that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the Grey Harpy will sit, without screwing his head round, for thirty seconds, — I can do a better thing of him in that time than the three years' work of this industrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my object — not myself ; and during the three years, the firm's object, in every fibre of bronze it made, was itself, and not the eagle. That is the true meaning of the little Pthah's having no eyes — he can see only him- self The Egyptian beetle was not quite the full type of him ; our northern ground beetle is a truer one. It is beautiful to see it at work, gathering its treasures (such as they are) into little round balls ; and pushing them home with the strong wrong end of it, — head downmost all the way, — like a modern political eco- nomist with his ball of capital, declaring that a nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues. But away with }()U, children, now, for I'm getting cross. DoR.\. I'm going down stairs ; I shall take care, at any rate, that there arc no little Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards. LECTURE IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. LECTURE IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. A working Lecture, in the large Schoolroom ; with experimental Interludes. The great bell has rung unexpectedly. Kathleen {entering disconsolate, though first at the summons). Oh dear, oh dear, what a day ! Was ever anything so provoking ! just when we wanted to crystaUise ourselves ; — and I'm sure it's going to rain all day long. L. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it. But I don't see why Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want to crystallise yourselves : you didn't the da)- before ycsterda}^ and you were not unhappy when it rained then. Florrie. Ah ! but we do want to-day ; and the rain's so tiresome. L. That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer by the expectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make yourselves unhappier than 6o The Crystal Orders. when you had nothing to look forward to, but the old ones. ' Isabel. But then, to have to wait — w^ait — -wait ; and before we've tried it ; — and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too ! L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick perhapses into your little minds like pins, till you are as un- comfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, when he would not lie quiet. Isabel. But what arc we to do to-day .' L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was nothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell you, children, tJiat re- quires nearly as much practising as music ; and we are continually losing our lessons when the master comes. Now, to-day, here's a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly. Isabel. But I don't like that .sort of lesson. I can't play it properly. L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel .'' The more need to practise. All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly and in time. But there must be no hurry. Kathleen. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day. The Crystal Orders. 6i L. There's no music in a 'rest,' Katie, that I know of : but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life- melody ; and scrambling on without counting — not that it's easy to count ; but nothing on which so much depends ever is easy. People are always talking of perseverance, and courage, and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, — and the rarest, too. I know twenty persevering girls for one patient one : but it is only that twenty-first who can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness, when impatience companions her. (Isabel and Lily sit doivn on the floor, and fold their hands. The others follow their example) Good children ! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded hands are not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really smiles at grief usually stands, or walks, or even runs : she seldom sits ; though she may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor thing, by monuments ; or like Chaucer's, ' with face pale, upon a hill of sand.' But we are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we use this calamitous forenoon to choose the shapes we are to crystallise into .' we know nothing about them >'et. 62 TJie Crystal Orders. ( The pictures of resignation rise from the floor, not in the patientest manner. General applause^ Mary (zvith one or two others). The very thing we wanted to ask you about ! Lily. We looked at the books about crystals, but they are so dreadful. L. Well, Lily, we must go through a little dread- fulness, that's a fact : no road to any good knowledge is wholly among the lilies and the grass ; there is rough climbing to be done always. But the crystal- books are a little too dreadful, most of them, I admit ; and we shall have to be content with very little of their help. You know, as you cannot stand on each other's heads, you can only make yourselves into the sections of crystals, — the figures they show when they are cut through ; and we will choose some that will be quite easy. You shall make diamonds of yourselves Isabel. Oh, no, no ! we won't be diamonds, please. L. Yes, you shall, Isabel ; they are very pretty things, if the jewellers, and the kings and queens, would only let them alone. You shall make diamonds of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, and emeralds ; and Irish diamonds ; two of those — with Lily in the middle of (;ne, whicJi will be very orderly, of course ; The Crystal Orders. 63 and Kathleen in the middle of the other, for which we will hope the best ; — and you shall make Derby- shire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar, and gold, and silver, and — Quicksilver there's enough of in you, without any making. Mary. Now, you know, the children will be getting quite wild : we must really get pencils and paper, and begin properly. L. Wait a minute. Miss Mary; I think, as w^e'vc the school-room clear to-day, I'll try to give you some notion of the three great orders or ranks of crystals, into which all the others seem more or less to fall. We shall only want one figure a day, in the playground ; and that can be drawn in a minute : but the general ideas had better be fastened first. I must show you a great many minerals ; so let me have three tables wheeled into the three windows, that we may keep our specimens separate ; — we will keep the three orders of crystals on sepa- rate tables. {First Interlude, of piisJiing and picllijig, and spreading of baize covers. ViOLET, not par- ticularly minding what she is about, gets her- self jammed into a corner, and bid to stand out of the IV ay ; on which, she devotes herself to meditation) Vkjlkt {after interval of meditation). How 64 The Crystal Ordei^s, strange it is that everything seems to divide into threes ! L. Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy won't, though shamrock will ; and daisies won't, though lihes will. Violet. But all the nicest things seem to divide into threes. L. Violets won't. Violet. No ; I should think not, indeed ! But I mean the great things. L. I've always heard the globe had four quarters. Isabel. Well ; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all. So mayn't it really be divided into three } L. If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of it, Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in ; and if it were divided into three in the inside of it, it would soon be no world to live in at all. Dora. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (Aside to MARY.) He will get off into political economy before we know where we arc. {Aloud) But the crystals are divided into three, then } L. No ; but there arc three general notions by which we may best get hold of them. Then between these notions there are other notions. Lily {alarmed). A great many ? And shall we have to learn them all ? The Crystal Orders. 65 L. More tlian a great many — a quite infinite many. So you cannot learn them all. Lily {greatly relieved). Then may we only learn the three ? L. Certainly ; unless, when you have got those three notions, you want to have some more notions ; — which would not surprise me. But we'll try for the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral neck- lace this morning } Kathleen. Oh ! who told you } It was in jumping. I'm so sorry ! L. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it .? Kathleen. I've lost some ; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can only get them out L. You mean to get them out some day, I suppose ; so try now. I want them. (Kathleen einpties her pocket on the floor. The beads disperse. The School disperses also. Second interlude — hunting piece}) L. {after waitijig paticjitly for a quarter of an hour, to Isabel, who comes np from tinder the table ivith her hair all about her ears, and the last find- able beads in her hand). Mice are useful little things sometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those beads crystallised. How many ways are there of putting them in order } 5 66 The Crystal Orders. Isabel. Well, first one would string them, I suppose ? L. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string ultimate atoms ; but you can put them in a row, and then they fasten themselves together, somehow, into a long rod or needle. We will call these ' Ncedle- crystals.' What would be the next way } Isabel. I suppose as we are to get together in the playground, when it stops raining, in different shapes .-' L. Yes ; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you can, to begin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close. Isabel {after care fid endeavour). I can't get them closer. L. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to throw yourselves into square in this confused way, you will never know your places ; so you had better consider every square as made of rods, put side by side. Take four beads of equal size, first, Isabel ; put them into a little square. That, you may consider as made up of two rods of two beads each. Then you can make a square a size larger, out of three rods of three. Then the next .square may be a size larger. How many rods, Lily .' Lily. Four rods of four beads each, 1 suppose. The Crystal Orders. 67 L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. 'But now, look here ; make another square of four beads again. You sec they leave a little opening in the centre. Isabel {pushing tivo opposite ones closer together). Now they don't. L. No ; but now it isn't a square ; and by push- ing the two together you have pushed the two others farther apart. Isabel. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were ! L. Yes ; for before, each of them only touched two of the others, but now each of the two in the middle touches the other three. Take away one of the outsiders, Isabel : now you have three in a triangle — the smallest triangle you can make out of the beads. Now put a rod of three beads on at one side. So, you have a triangle of six beads ; but just the shape of the first one. Next a rod of four on the side of that ; and you have a triangle of ten beads : then a rod of five on the side of that ; and you have a triangle of fifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads on the side, and a triangle with five beads on the side ; equal-sided, therefore, like the square. So, however few or many you may be, you may soon learn how to crystallise quickly into these two figures, which are the foundation of form in the 68 The Crystal Orders. commonest, and therefore actually the most im- portant, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our esteem, the most important, minerals of the world. Look at this in my hand. Violet. Why, it is leaf gold ! L. Yes ; but beaten by no man's hammer ; or rather, not beaten at all, but woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold enough there to gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin. Violet. How beautiful ! And it glitters like a leaf covered with frost. L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass : for it is Transylvanian gold ; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that may be : but the silver always is in the gold ; and if he docs it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven so fine anywhere else. Mary (who has been looking through her magnify- ing glass). But this is not woven. This is all made of little triangles. L. Say ' patched,' then, if you must be so par- ticular. But if you fancy all those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are infinitely small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we The Crystal Orders. 69 built our great triangle of the beads, what word will you take for the manufacture ? May. There's no word — it is beyond words. L. Yes; and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts too. But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the ruined wood- lands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to re- member the second kind of crystals, Leaf-cryst3.\s, or Foliated-crystsXs; though I show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression on you, for gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised in leaves ; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica ; w^hich, if you once feel well, and break well, you will always know again ; and you will often have occasion to know it, for you will find it every- where, nearly, in hill countries. Kathleen. If we break it well ! May we break it .' L. To powder, if you like. « {Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation. Third Interlude. It sustains severely philosophical treatment at all hajids.) Florrie {to ivJioni the last fragments have de- scended). Always leaves, and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust ! L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves. {Shoios them to Florrie through magnifying jlass) P 70 The Crystal Orders. Isabel {peeping over Florrie's shoidder). But then this bit under the glass looks like that bit out of the glass ! If we could break this bit under the glass, what would it be like ? L. It would be all leaves still. Isabel. And then if we broke those again .? L. All less leaves still. Isabel {impatienf). And if we broke them again, and again, and again, and again, and again } L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it. Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the large ones : because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent ; while the large flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when you let it go, and broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a large mass would not bend at all. Mary. Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way ? L. No ; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimen of a foliated crystallisation. The little triangles are portions of solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica; but you sec it is made up of triangles, like the gold, and stands, almost accuratel}', as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold. Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals. Mary. Is it iron } I never saw iron so bright. TJic Crystal Orders. 7 i L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised : from its resemblance to mica, it is often called micaceous iron. Kathleen. May we break this, too ? L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, it would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the glass again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles where they lap over each other. The gold has the same : but you see them better here, terrace above terrace, countless, and in successive angles, like superb fortified bastions. May. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles } L. Far from it ; mica is occasionally so, but usually of hexagons ; and here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that the leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as their autumnal gold. Florrie. Oh! oh! oh! {Juvips for Joy). L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie ? Florrie. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone. L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a shower, you will find they are much brighter than that ; and surely the}- are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones .•• 72 The Crystal Orders. Florrie. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I suppose. L. Now you have it, Florrie. Violet {sighing). There are so many beautiful things we never see ! L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we should all sigh for, — that there are so many ugly things we never see. Violet, But we don't want to see ugly things ! L. You had better say, * We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, . much more than his hands can ever heal. Violet. I don't understand ; — how is that like the leaves .^ L. The same law holds in our neglect of multi- plied pain, as in our neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone ; and takes more notice of it than of all the green in the wood : and you, or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain ; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in The Crystal Orders. 73 Vallombrosa ; — and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened. May. But we do not see the people being killed or dying. L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other day, saying he was ill, May ; but you cried for him ; and played no croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now ; and what is more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little while ; and ask no questions till I've done : for we branch {' exfoliate,' I should say, mineralogically) always into something else, — though that's my fault more than yours ; but I must go straight on now. You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of leaf-crystals ; and you see the sort of look they have : you can easily remember that ' folium ' is Latin for a leaf, and that the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called ' folia ; ' but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones, other things that are like it in structure are called ' micas ; ' thus we have Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-mica, which is another like it, made chiefly of copper ; and this foliated iron is called 'micaceous iron.' You have then these two great orders, Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows ; and Leaf-crys- tals, made (probably) of needles interwoven ; now, 74 The Crystal Orders. lastly, there are crystals of a third order, in heaps, or knots, or masses, which may be made, either of leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound like Roman fasces ; and mica itself, when it is well crystallised, puts itself into such masses, as if to show us how others are made. Here is a brown six-sided crystal, quite as beautifully chiselled at the sides as any castle tower ; but you see it is entirely built of folia of mica, one laid above another, w^hich break away the moment I touch the edge with my knife. Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the same size and colour, which I want you to compare with the mica carefully ; but as I cannot wait for }'Ou to do it just now, I must tell you quickly what main differences to look for. First, you will feel it is far heavier than the mica. Then, though its surface looks quite micaceous in the folia of it, when you try them with the knife, you will find you cannot break them away Kathleen. May I try } L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you. {Experimental pause. KATHLEEN doing her best) You'll have that knife shutting on your finger presently, Kate ; and I don't know a girl who would like less to have her hand tied up for a week. Kathleen {who also docs not like to be beaten, The Crystal Orders. 75 — giving up the knife despondently). What can the nasty hard thing be ? L. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate : very hard set certainly, yet not so hard as it might be. If it were thoroughly well crystallised, you would see none of those micaceous fractures ; and the stone would be quite red and clear, all through. Kathleen. Oh, cannot you show us one } L. Eg)-pt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful one in the clasp of her favourite bracelet. Kathleen. Why, that's a ruby ! L. Well, so is that thing you've been scratch- ing at. Kathleen. My goodness ! ( Takes lip tJie stone again, very delicately ; and drops it. General consternation^ L. Never mind, Katie ; you might drop it from the top of the house, and do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and as good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults, like other people ; and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to assert anything energetically, I would assert it by 'my badness,' not 'my goodness.' Kathleen. Ah, now, it's too bad of you ! L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my ' too- badness.' But you may as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it ; and look carefully at the 76 TJie Crystal Orders. beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface : and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the same stone as the ruby), in which you will see the same lovely structure, like the threads of the finest white cobweb. I do not know what is the exact method of a ruby's construction ; but you see by these lines, what fine construction there is, even in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually appears as a massive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but, practically crystallised masses throw themselves into one of the three groups we have been examining to-day ; and appear either as Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles or (fibres), they make the stones or rocks formed out of them ' fibroAis ; ' when they are in folia, they make them 'foliated ; ' when they are in knots (or grains), '■graniilarl Fibrous rocks are comparatively rare, in mass ; but fibrous minerals are innumerable ; and it is often a question which really no one but a young lady could possibly settle, whether one should call the fibres composing them ' threads ' or ' needles.' Here is amianthus, for in- stance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you ever sewed with ; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper points and brighter lustre than your finest needles have ; and fastened in The Crystal Orders. 77 white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace ; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals ; and here is red oxide of copper (you must not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some of the films of it off the stone), which is simply a woven tissue of scarlet silk. However, these finer thread forms are comparatively rare, while the bolder and needle-like crystals occur constantly ; so that, I believe, ' Needle-crystal ' is the best word, (the grand one is ' Acicular crystal,' but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily understood ; and there- fore more scientific). Then the Leaf-crystals, as I said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and the Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form essentially granular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks : and it is always a point of more interest to me (and I think will ultimately be to you), to consider the causes which force a given mineral to take any one of these three general forms, than what the peculiar geometrical limitations are, belonging to its own crystals.* It is more interesting to me, for instance, to try and find out why the red oxide of copper, usually crystallising in cubes or octahedrons, makes itself exquisitely, out of its cubes, into this red silk • Note iv. 78 The Crystal Orders. in one particular Cornish mine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the octahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that mathemati- cal part of crystallography is quite beyond girls' strength ; but these questions of the various tempers and manners of crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the most curious teaching for you. For in the fulfilment, to the best of their power, of their adopted form under given circumstances, there are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue ; and indeed expressible under no term so proper as that of the Virtue, or Courage, of crystals : — which, if you are not afraid of the crystals making you ashamed of yourselves, we will try to get some notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, and more about yourselves than the minerals. Don't come unless you like. Mary. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves ; but we'll come, for all that. L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying glasses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads about them. For the best thoughts are generally those which come with- out being forced, one does not know how. And so I hope you will get through your wet day patiently. LECTURE V. CR YS TA L VI R TUBS. LECTURE V. CRYSTAL VIRTUES. A quiet talk, in the afternoon, by the sunniest window of the Drawing-room. Present, Florrie, Isabel, May, LuciLLA, Kathleen, Dora, Mary, and some others, who have saved time for the bye-Lecture. L. So you have really come, like good girls, to be made ashamed of yourselves ? Dora {i>ery meekly). No, we needn't be made so ; we always are. L. Well, I believe that's truer than most pretty speeches : but you know, you saucy girl, some people have more reason to be so than others. Are you sure everybody is, as well as you .-' The General Voice. Yes, yes ; everybody. L. What ! Florrie ashamed of herself .? (Florrie hides behind the curtain) L. And Isabel > (Isabel hides under the table.) L. And May > {May runs into the eorner behind the piano) 6 82 crystal Virtues. L. And Lucilla ? (LUCILLA Jiidcs her face in Jier /lands) L. Dear, dear ; but this will never do. I shall have to tell you of the faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in heart again. May {coming out of Jier corner). Oh ! have the crystals faults, like us } L. Certainly, May. Their best virtues are shown in fighting their faults. And some have a great many faults ; and some are very naughty crystals indeed. Florrie {from behind her curtain). As naughty as me ? Isabel {peeping from under the table cloth). Or me } L. Well, I don't know. They never forget their syntax, children, when once they've been taught it. But I think some of them are, on the whole, worse than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to look so radiant, all in a minute, on that account. Dora. Oh ! but it's so much more comfortable. {Everybody seems to recover tJieir spirits. Eclipse of Florrie and Isabel terminates) F. W'liat kindly creatures girls are, after all, to tlicir neighbours' failings ! I think you may be ashamed of yourselves, indeed, now, children ! I can tell you, you shall hear of the highest crystalline Crystal Virtues. 83 merits that I can think of to-day : and I wish there were more of them ; but crystals have a hmited, though a stern, code of morals ; and their essential virtues are but two ; — the first is to be pure, and the second to be well shaped. Mary. Pure ! Does that mean clear — trans- parent ? L. No ; unless in the case of a transparent sub- stance. You cannot have a transparent crystal of gold ; but you may have a perfectly pure one. Isabel. But you said that it was the shape that made things be crystals ; therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first virtue, not their second } L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only their second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and things which the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or shaken, it must take what shape it can ; but it seems as if, even then, it had in itself the power of rejecting impurity, if it has crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well enough shaped in its way ; but it seems to have been languid and sick at heart ; and some white milky substance has got into it, and mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite yellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on the surface. Here is another., broken into a thousand separate facets, and out of all 84 Crystal Virliies. traceable shape ; but as pure as a mountain spring. I like this one best. The Audience. So do I — and I — and I. Mary. Would a crystallographer } L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified in the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile question, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a prior, if not a nobler, virtue ; at all events it is most convenient to think about it first. Mary. But what ought we to think about it } Is there much to be thought — I mean, much to puzzle one } L. I don't know what you call ' much.' It is a long time since I met with anything in which there was little. There's not much in this, perhaps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean, — and there's an end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart — only you can wash your hands without changing them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, it will be as well to take care that your hearts don't want much washing ; for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they do. {A iidicnce dottbtful and uiicojiifortablc. Luci LL A at las/ takes courage) LuciLLA. Oh ! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean } Crystal Virtues. 85 L. Not easily, Lucilla ; so you had better keep them so, when they are. Lucilla. When they are ! But, sir L. Well .? Lucilla. Sir — surely — are we not told that they are all evil .-' L. Wait a little, Lucilla : that is difficult ground you are getting upon ; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we understand what their good and evil consist in ; they may help us afterwards to some useful hints about our own. I said that their goodness consisted chiefly in purity of substance, and perfectness of form : but those are rather the effects of their goodness, than the goodness itself The in- herent virtues of the crystals, resulting in these outer conditions, might really seem to be best described in the words we should use respecting living creatures — ' force of heart ' and * steadiness of purpose.' There seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an unconquerable purity of vital power, and strength of crystal spirit. Whatever dead substance, unacceptant of this energy, comes in their way, is either rejected, or forced to take some beautiful subordinate form ; the purity of the crystal remains unsullied, and every atom of it bright with coherent energy. Then the second condition is, that from the beginning of its whole structure, a fine crystal seems to have 86 Crystal Virtues. determined that it will be of a certain size and of a certain shape ; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form, and one which it might seem very difficult to build — a pyramid with convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there is not a flaw in its contour throughout ; not one of its myriads of component sides but is as bright as a jeweller's facetted Avork (and far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp as javelins ; their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything more resolute, consummate, determinate in form, can- not be conceived. Here, on the other hand, is a crystal of the same substance, in a perfectly simple type of form — a plain six-sided prism ; but from its base to its point, — and it is nine inches long, — it has never for one instant made up its mind what thick- ness it will have. It seems to have begun by making itself as thick as it thought possible with the quantity of material at command. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it has clumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has thinned itself, in a panic of economy ; then puffed itself out again; then starved one side to enlarge another; then warped itself quite out of its finst line. Opaque, rough-sur- faced, jagged on the cd^^Q, distorted in the spine, it exhibits a quite human image of decrepitude and Crystal Virtues. 87 dishonour ; but the worst of all the signs of its de- cay and helplessness is that, half-way up, a parasite crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself in the side of the larger one, eating out a cavity round its root, and then growing backwards, or down- wards, contrary to the direction of the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least difference in purity of substance between the first most noble stone, and this ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its will, or want of will. Mary. Oh, if we could but understand the meaning of it all ! L. We can understand all that is good for us. It is just as true for us, as for the crystal, that the noble- ness of life depends on its consistency, — clearness of purpose, — quiet and ceaseless energy. All doubt, and repenting, and botching, and retouching, and wondering what it will be best to do next, are vice, as well as misery. Mary {iimch wondering). But must not one re- pent when one does wrong, and hesitate when one can't see one's wa)' ^ L. You have no business at all to do wrong; nor to get into any way that >-ou cannot see. Your intelligence should always be far in advance of your act. Whenever you do not know what you are about, you are sure to be doing wrong. 88 Crystal Virtues. Kathleen. Oh, dear, but I never know what I am about ! L. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to know, if you know that. And you find that you have done wrong afterwards ; and perhaps some day you may begin to know, or at least, think, what you are about. Isabel. But surely people can't go ver\' wrong if they don't know, can they 1 I mean, they can't be very naughty. They can be wrong, like Kathleen, or me, when we make mistakes ; but not wroncr in the dreadful way. I can't express what I mean ; but there are two sorts of wrong, are there not } L. Yes, Isabel ; but you will find that the great difference is between kind and unkind wrongs, not between meant and unmeant wrong. Very {qw people really mean to do wrong, — in a deep sense, none. They only don't know what they arc about. Cain did not mean to do wrong when he killed Abel. (Isabel draius a deep breath, and opens her eyes very zvide.) L. No, Isabel ; and there arc countless Cains among us now, who kill their brothers by the score a day, not only for less provocation than Cain had, but for no provocation, — and merely for what they can make of their bones, — yet do not think they ar noble- ness. An immense quantity of modern confusion of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism ; which will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose the centralisation of its interest in itself Mary. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did the old Greek proverb ' Know thy- self come to be so highly esteemed .-' L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs ; — Apollo's proverb, and the sun's; — but do you think you can know yourself by looking i}ito yourself.? Never. You can know what you are, only by lOO Crystal Virtues. looking out of yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others ; compare your own interests with those of others ; try to understand what you appear to them, as well as what they appear to you ; and judge of yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately ; not positively : starting always with a wholesome conviction of the probability that there is nothing particular about you. For instance, some of you perhaps think you can a\ rite poetry. Dwell on your own feelings and doings ; — and you will soon think yourselves Tenth Muses ; but forget your own feelings ; and try, instead, to understand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and you will soon begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls — which is much like the fact. So, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune ; — )-ou meditate over its effects on you personally ; and begin to think that it is a chastise- ment, or a warning, or a this or that or the other of profound significance ; and that all the angels in heaven have left their business for a little while, that they may watch its effects on )-our mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of your fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, greater a thousandfold, are happening, every second, to twenty times worthier persons: and your self-consciousness will change into pity and humilil)- ; and you will know yourself, so Crystal Virtues. i o I far as to understand that ' there hath nothing taken thee but what is common to man.' Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person of sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the inner evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they are often supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate^ So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture ; and that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. ' A good man. out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good ; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that which is evil.' ' They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it.' ' Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine 102 - Crystal Virtites. heart.' ' The wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is upright in heart.' And so on ; they are countless, to the same effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascer- tain how much or how little corruption there is in human nature ; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed ; whether we are people of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold in mind. ' Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.' LUCILLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem ! L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look consistent to a girl of fifteen } Look up at your own room window ; — you can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left open, as it ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a black spot it looks, in the sun-lighted wall } Lucilla. Yes, it looks as black as ink. L. Yet you know it is a very bright room when you arc inside of it ; quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that its little lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if you could look into your heart from the sun's point Crystal Virtues. 103 of view, it might appear a very black hole to you indeed: nay, the sun may sometimes think good to tell you that it looks so to Him ; but He will come into it, and make it very cheerful for you, for all that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one question iox yon^ remember, is not 'dark or light?' but ' tidy or untidy ? ' Look well to your sweeping and garnishing ; and be sure it is only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at his back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black. LECTURE VL CRYSTAL QUARRELS. LECTURE VI. CRYSTAL QUARRELS. Full conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game at crystallisation in the morning, of which various account has to be rendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why they were always where they were not intended to be. L. {having received and considered the report). You have got on pretty well, children : but you know these were easy figures you have been trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals of snow ! Mary. I don't think those will be the most diffi- cult : — they are so beautiful that we shall remember our places better ; and then they are all regular, and in stars : it is those twisty oblique ones we are afraid of. L. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leu- then, and learn Friedrich's ' oblique order.' You will 'get it done for once, I think, provided you can march as a pair of compasses would.' But remember, io8 Crystal Quarrels. when you can construct the most difficult single figures, you have only learned half the game — nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it. Mary. Indeed ; what else is there } L. It is seldom that any mineral cr}-stallises alone. Usually two or three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together. They do this abso- lutely without flaw' or fault, when they are in fine temper : and observe what this signifies. It signifies that the two, or more, minerals of different natures agree, somehow, between themselves, how much space each will want ; — agree which of them shall give way to the other at their junction ; or in what measure each will accommodate itself to the other's shape ! And then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space ; yielding, or being yielded to, as it builds, till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-naturcd neighbour. So that, in order to practise this, in even the simplest terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing different colours ; each must choose a different figure to construct ; and you must form one of these figures through the other, both going on at the same time. Mary. I think ive may, perhaps, manage it ; but I cannot at all understand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much preconcerting of plan, and Crystal Quarrels. 109 so much giving way to each other, as if they really were living. L. Yes, it implies both concurrence and compro- mise, regulating all wilfulness of design : and, more curiously still, the crystals do not always give way to each other. They show exactly the same varieties of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they yield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy ; forming fantastic, but exquisitely finished, groups : and sometimes they will not yield at all ; but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honour, and even their own likeness, in the contest. Mary. But is not that wholly wonderful } How is it that one never sees it spoken of in books } L. The .scientific men are all busy in determining the constant laws under which the struggle takes place ; these indefinite humours of the elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific people rarely give themselves the trouble of thinking at all, when they look at stones. Not that it is of much use to think ; the more one thinks, the more one is puzzled. Mary. Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany } L. Everything has its own wonders ; but, given the nature of the plant, it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and wh}- it docs it, than, given no Crystal Quarrels. anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to under- stand what a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at once admit a kind of volition and choice, in the flower ; but we are not accustomed to attribute any- thing of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in reality, more likeness to some conditions of human feeling among stones than among plants. There is a far greater difference between kindly-tempered and ill- tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two specimens of the same flower: and the friend- ships and wars of crystals depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties of disposition, than any associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica ; one rich red, and the other silver white : the mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallise comfortably in ; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house ; fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are wicked garnets living with Avicked mica. See what ruin they make of each other ! You cannot tell which is which ; the garnets look like dull red stains on the crumbling stone. By the way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint, why he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all under his care ; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to look after. The streets of Airolo arc paved with them. Crystal Quarrels. i 1 1 May. Paved with garnets ? L. With mica-slate and garnets ; I broke this bit out of a paving stone. Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally fond of each other ; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill brought up. So it is always. Good crystals are friendly with almost all other good crystals, however little they chance to see of each other, or however opposite their habits may be ; while wicked crystals quarrel with one another, though they may be exactly alike in habits, and see each other con- tinually. And of course the wicked crystals quarrel with the good ones. Isabel. Then do the good ones get angry } L. No, never : they attend to their own work- and life ; and live it as v/ell as they can, though they are always the sufferers. Here, for instance, is a rock- crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighbourhood, near Beaufort in Savoy ; and he has had to fight with vile calcareous mud all his life. See here, when he was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly buried him ; a weaker crystal would have died in despair ; but he only gathered himself together, like Hercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of crystal over the clay; conquered it, — imprisoned it, — and lived on. Then, when he was a little older, came 112 Crystal Quan^cls. more clay ; and poured itself upon him here, at the side ; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived on, in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, and tried to cover them, and round them away ; but upon that he threw out buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central line as chapels round a cathedral apse ; and clustered them round the clay ; and conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his summit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure that for an instant ; and left his flanks all rough, but pure ; and fought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest, and peak over peak, till the clay surrendered at last : and here is his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high ! Lily. Oh, how nice of him ! What a dear, brave crystal ! But I can't bear to sec his flanks all broken, and the clay within them. L. Yes ; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such contention ; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them captive is a kind of dishonour. Ikit look, here has been quite a dif- ferent kind of struggle : the adverse power has been more orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its own. This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil : here is a disciplined hostility ; army against army. Crystal Quan'c/s. i i 3 Lily. Oh, but tliis is much more beautiful ! ■ L. Yes, for both the elements have true x'irtue in them ; it is a pity they are at war, but the}' war grandly. Mary. But is this the same clay as in the other crystal .' L. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, the enemy is really limestone ; but in the first, dis- ordered, and mixed with true clay ; while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallises into its own primitive form, the oblique six-sided one, which }'ou know : and out of these it makes regiments ; and then squares of the regiments, and so charges the rock crystal, literally in square against column. Isabel. Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal do } L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it through at every charge. Look here, — and here ! The loveliest crystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces. Isabel. Oh, dear ; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then } L. No, softer. Very much softer. Mary. But then, how can it possibly cut the cr}'stal .' L. It did not really cut it, though it passes through it. The two were formed together, as I told you; but 8 114 Crystal Quarrels. no one knows how. Still, it is strange that this hard quartz has in all cases a good-natured way with it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of soft things make nests for themselves in it ; and it never makes a nest for itself in an}'thing. It has all the rough out- side work ; and every sort of cowardly and weak mineral can shelter itself within it. Look ; these are hexagonal plates of mica; if they were outside of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper; but they are inside of it, — nothing can hurt them, — the crystal has taken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate edges as sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock. Here is a piece of branched silver : you can bend it with a touch of your finger, but the stamp of its every fibre is on the rock in which it lay, as if the quartz had been as soft as wool. LiLV. Oh, the good, good quartz ! But does it never get inside of anything } L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer, without being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else. Isabel. Please, there was something I heard you talking about, last term, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but 1 heard something about nests; and I thought it was birds', nests; and I couldn't help listen- ing ; and then, I remember, it was about 'nests of Crystal Quarrels. 1 1 5 quartz in granite.' I remember, because I was so disappointed ! L. Yes, mousic, you remember quite rightly ; but I can't tell you about those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow : but there's no contradiction between my saying then, and now ; I will show you that there is not, some day. Will you trust me meanwhile ? Isabel. Won't I ! L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz ; it is on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born quartz living with a green mineral, called cpidote ; and they are immense friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz- crystal, and a very weak and slender little one of epidote, have begun to grow, close by each other, and sloping unluckily towards each other, so that at last they meet. They cannot go on growing together ; the quartz crystal is five times as thick, and more than twenty times as strong,* as the epidote; but he stops at once, just in the very crowning moment of his life, when he is building his own summit ! He lets the pale little film of epidote grow right past him ; stopping his own summit for it; and he never himself grows any more. • Quartz is not much harder than epidote ; the strength is only supposed to be in some proportion to the squares of the diameters. 1 1 6 Crystal Quarrels, Lily iajter some silence of zvonder). But is the quartz never wicked' then ? L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good- natured, compared to other things. Here are two very characteristic examples ; one is good quartz, living with good pearlspar, and the other, wicked quartz, living with wicked pearlspar. In both, the quartz yields to the soft carbonate of iron : but, in the first piece, the iron takes only what it needs of room ; and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal with such precision, that you must break it away before you can tell whether it really penetrates the quartz or not ; while the crj-stals of iron are per- fectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But here, when the two minerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged and torn to pieces ; and there is not a single iron crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the worst of it, in both instances. Violet. IMight we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with the weak little film across it .' it seems such a strange lovely thing, like the self- sacrifice of a human being. L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing, Violet. It is often a necessaiy and noble thing ; but no form nor degree of suicide can be ever lo\cl)'. Violet. But self-sacrifice is not suicide ! Crystal Quarrels. 1 1 7 L. What is it then ? Violet. Giving up one's self for another. L. Well ; and what do you mean by ' giving up one's self ' } Violet. Giving up one's tastes, one's feehngs, one's time, one's happiness, and so on, to make others happy. L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to make him happy in that way. Violet {hesitating). In what way .^ L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and happiness. Violet. No, no, I don't mean that ; but you know, for other people, one must. L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about .^ Be it so ; but how does this ' giving up ' differ from suicide then .-' Violet. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self .? L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not ; neither is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walk- ing, your foot will wither ; }ou may as well cut it off : if you 'surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear, the light ; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will soon slay. 1 1 8 Crystal Quarrels. Violet. But why do you make me think of that verse then, about the foot and the eye ? L You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot or eye offend you ; but why should they offend you ? Violet. I don't know ; I never quite understood that. L. Yet it is a sharp order ; one needing to be well understood if it is to be well obeyed ! When Helen sprained her ancle the other day, you saw how strongly it had to be bandaged ; that is to say, pre- vented from all work, to recover it. But the bandage was not ' lovely.' Violet. No, indeed. L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten, instead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off But the amputation would not have been ' lovely.' Violet. No. L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you ; — if the light that is in )'OU be darkness, and your feet run into mischief, or are taken in the snare, — it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I think : but, so crippled, you can never be what }'OU might have been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or maimed ; and the sacrifice is not beauti- ful, though necessary. Crystal Quarrels. 1 1 9 Violet {after a pause). But when one sacrifices one's self for others ? L. Why nut rather others for you ? Violet. Oh ! but I couldn't bear that. L. Then why should they bear it } Dora {bursting in, indignant). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus, and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's daughter } L. {sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the Samaritan woman's son .^ Dora. Which Samaritan woman's ^ L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29. Dora {obeys). How horrid ! As if we meant an)'thing like that ! L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean, children. What practical difference is there between ' that,' and what you are talking about .' The Samaritan children had no voice of their own in the business, it is true ; but neither had Iphigenia : the Greek girl was certainly neither boiled, nor eaten ; but that only makes a difference in the dramatic effect ; not in the principle. Dora {biting her lip). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean. As if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this moment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome ! L. I mean, and ahva}-s hax'c meant, simply this, I20 Crystal Quarrels. Dora ; — that the will of God respectnig us is that we shall live by each other's happiness, and life ; not by each other's misery, or death. I made you read that verse which so shocked you just now, because the relations of parent and child are typical of all beautiful human help. A child may have to die for its parents ; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for them ; — that, not by its sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength ; and as the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to slay them- selves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such ; and foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid it, — that they ac- cept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion ; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies than to them. The one thing that a Crystal Quarrels. i 2 i good man has to do, and to see done, is justice ; he is neither to slay himself nor others causelessly : so far from dcn)'inL,r himself, since he is pleased by good, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And I only wish there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among the good Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to band together in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correc- tion of faults of character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain to do. Violet. But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to please others, and not our- selves .-' L. My dear child, in the daily course and disci- pline of right life, we must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in all kind and courteous and affectionate ways : and these submissions and minis- tries to each other, of which you all know (none better) the practice and the preciousness, are as good for the yielder as the receiver : they strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness 122 Crystal Quarrels. to others (though it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lix-es in their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary necessity ; not the fuliilment of the continuous law of being. Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually foolish ; and calamitous in its issue : and by the sentimental proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made most of their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion so hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips, pretends to teach every man to ' love his neigh- bour as himself,' with its hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast ; and practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people's labour. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts ; and to strengthen them for the help of others. Do you think Titian would have helped the world better by denying himself, and not painting ; or Casella by- denying himself, and not singing ? The real virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us ; as he was, even in purgatory. The very word ' virtue ' means, not ' conduct,' but ' strength,' vital energy in the heart. Were not you reading about that group of words beginning with V, — vital, virtuous, vigorous, Ciystal Oiiarreh. 123 and so on, — in Max Miiller, the other day, Sibyl ? Can't you tell the others about it ? Sinvi.. No, I can't ; will you tell us, please ? L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children, that you should at least know two Latin words ; recollect that ' mors ' means death, and delaying ; and ' vita ' means life, and growing : and try always, not to mortify }'0ur- selves, but to vivify yourselves. Violet. But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections } and surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's service, if not in man's } L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you enough ethics for one talk, I think ! Do let us have a little play. Lily, what were )'0u so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning ? Lily. Oli, it was the ants who were bus)-, not I ; I was only trying to help them a little. L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose } Lily. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome, when one tries to help them ! They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as they could, through a piece of grass ; and pulling and pushing, so hard ; and tumbling over and o\'cr, — it made one quite pit)' them ; so I took some of the bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where 124 Crystal Quarrels. I thought they wanted to put them ; but instead of being pleased, they left them directly, and ran about looking quite angry and frightened ; and at last ever so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all over, and I had to come away. L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar lying on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the ants to hear you a French verb. Isabel. Ah ! but you didn't, though ! L. Why not, Isabel 1 I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that verb by herself. Isabel. No ; but the ants couldn't help her. L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily } Lily {thinking). I ought to have learned some- thing from them, perhaps. L. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the irregular verb } Lily. No, indeed. {Laughing, with sonic others) L. What are you laughing at, children .' I can- not see why the ants should not have left their tasks to help Lily in hcr's, — since here is Violet thinking she ought to leave her tasks, to help God in His. Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that ' He ought to learn something from her.' Cjystal Quarrels. i 25 {Tears hi ViOLET's eyes) Dora {scarlet). It's too bad — it's a shame: — poor Violet ! L. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red, and the other so pale, merely be- cause you are made for a moment to feel the absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use, in common with half the religious world. There is but one way in which man can ever help God — that is, by letting God help him : and there is no M-ay in which His name is more guiltily taken in vain than by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance of His. God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed ; and that em- ployment is truly 'our Father's business.' He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do ; if we cither tire ourscl\-es or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happ)- our- selves. Now, away with j-ou, children ; and be as happy as you can. And w hen \ou cannot, at least don't plume yourselves upon pouting. LECTURE VII. HOME VIRTU E S. LECTURE VII. HOME VIRTUES. By the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening. Dora. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright, and here's your armchair — and you're to tell us all about what you promised. L. All about what } Dora. All about virtue. Kathleen. Yes, and about the words that begin with V. L. I heard you singing about a word that begins with V, in the playground, this morning, Miss Katie. Kathleen. Me singing ! May. Oh tell us — tell us. L. ' Vilikens and his ' YLktu'DLE^ {stoppi?ig his inoiit/i). Oh! please don't Where were you ? Isabel. I'm sure I wish I had known where he was ! We lost him among the rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to ; oh, you naughty — ■ naughty — {climbs on his knee). 9 130 Home Virtues, Dora. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk. L. / don't. Dora. Oh, but you must. You promised, you know. L. Yes, if all was well ; but all's ill. I'm tired, and cross ; and I won't. Dora. You're not a bit tired, and you're not Grosser than two sticks ; and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six. Come here, Egypt ; and get on the other side of him. (Egypt takes ?// a commanding position near the hearth bnish) Dora {reviewing her forces). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in front. (Lily does as she is bid.) L. {seeing J Lc has no chance against the odds). Well, well ; but I'm really tired. Go and dance a little, first ; and let me think. Dora. No ; you mustn't think. You will be wanting to make us think next ; that will be tire- some. L. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of thinking: and then I'll talk as long as you like. Dora. Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There isn't time ; and we want to hear about virtue. L. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is the first of girls' virtues. Home Virtues. 1 3 i Egypt. Indeed ! And the second ? L. Dressing. Egypt. Now, you needn't say that ! I mended that tear the first thing before breakfast this morning. L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical prin- ciple, Eg)'pt ; whether you have mended your gown or not. Dora. Now don't be tiresome. We really must hear about virtue, please ; seriously. L. Well. I'm telling you about it, as fast as I can. Dora. What! the first of girls' virtues is dancing.? L. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and not wishing to tease, nor to hear about virtue. Dora {to EgY'PT). Isn't he cross } Egypt. How many balls must we go to in the season, to be perfectly virtuous .'' L. As many as you can without losing your colour. But I did not sa)- )'ou should wish to go to balls. I said you should be always wanting to dance. Egypt. So we do ; but everybody says it is very wrong. L. Why, Egypt, I thought — ' There was a lady once, That would not be a queen,— that would she not. For all the mud in Egypt.' 132 Home Virtues. You were complaining the other day of having to go out a great deal oftener than you liked. Egypt. Yes, so I was; but then, it isn't to dance. There's no room to dance: it's — {Pausing to consider wJiat it is for). L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's no harm in that. Girls ought to like to be seen. Dora {Iier eyes flasJiiiig). Now, you don't mean that ; and }'ou're too provoking ; and we won't dance again, for a month. L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only banish me to the library ; and dance by yourselves ; but I don't think Jessie and Lil\- will agree to that. You like me to see you dancing, don't you, Lil}' } Lily. Yes, certainly, — when we do it righth'. L. And besides. Miss Dora, if young ladies really do not want to be seen, they should take care not to let their eyes flash when they dislike what people say: and, more than that, it is all nonsense from beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't know any more tiresome flower in the borders than your especiall}' 'modest' snowdrop; which one always has to stoop down and take all sorts of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its poor little head off, before you can sec it ; and then, half of it is not worth seeing. Girls should be like daisies; nice and white, Home Virtues. i 3 3 with an edge of red, if you look close ; making the ground bright wherever they are ; knowing simply and quietly that they do it, and are meant to do it, and that it would be very wrong if they didn't do it. Not want to be seen, indeed ! How long were you in doing your back hair, this after- noon, Jessie ? (Jessie not immediately answering, DORA eomes to her assistance) Dora. Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess .' Jessie {putting her finger up). Now, Dorothy, you needn't talk, you know ! L. I know she needn't, Jessie ; I shall ask her about those dark plaits presently. (DORA looks round to see if there is any ivay open for retreat) But nex^er mind ; it was worth the time, whatever it was ; and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a chignon : but if you don't want it to be seen, you had better wear a cap. Jessie, Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play .' And we all have been thinking> and thinking, all da\- ; and hoping you would tell us things ; and now — ! L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for you ; and you won't believe me. You might as well have let me go to sleep at 134 Home Virtues. once, as I wanted to. {Endeavours again to make himself comfortable) Isabel. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty ! — Kathleen, come here. L. {knowing zvJiat he has to expect if KATHLEEN comes}) Get away, Isabel, you're too heavy. {Sitting np) What have I been saying .-' Dora. I do believe he has been asleep all the time ! You never heard anything like the things you've been saying. L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is all I want. Egypt. Yes, but wc don't understand, and you know we don't ; and we want to. L. What did I say first .? Dora. That the first \irtue of girls was wanting to go to balls. L. I said nothing of the kind. Jes.SIE. ' Always wanting to dance,' you said. L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely happy ; — so happy that the}' don't know what to do with themselves for happiness, — and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect ' Louisa,' ' No fountain from a rocky cave E'er tripped with foot so free ; She seemed as happy as a wave That dances on the sea.' Home Virtnes. 1 3 5 A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her. Violet. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes } L. Yes, Violet ; and dull sometimes, and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, must ; but it is always either our own fault, or some- body else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary. May. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing .'' L. Yes, May ; but it does not follow they were wise as well as good. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children ; though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one : ' Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance ; and both young men and old together ; and I will turn their mourning into jo}'.' {TJie children get very serious, but look at each other, as if pleased.) Mary. They understand now : but, do j-ou know what you said next .'' L. Yes ; I was not more than half asleep. I said their second virtue was dressing. 136 Home Virttccs. Mary. Well ! what did you mean by that ? L. What do you mean by dressing ? Mary. Wearing fine clothes. L. Ah ! there's the mistake. / mean wearing plain ones. Mary. Yes, I daresay ! but that's not what girls understand by dressing, you know. L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses, perhaps they also under- stand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing ; and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make a dress ; and — which is quite as difficult — wear one. Dora. I'm not sure about the making ; for the wearing, we can all wear them — out, before anybody expects it. Egypt {aside to L., piteonsly). Indeed I have mended that torn flounce quite neatly ; look if I haven't ! L. {aside, to Egypt). All right ; don't be afraid. {Aloud, to Dora.) Yes, doubtless ; but }-ou know that is only a slow way of ^///dressing. Dora. Then, we arc all to learn dress-making, arc we .•' L. Yes ; and always to dress yoursehes beauti- fully — not finely, unless on occasion ; but then very Home Virti&cs. 1 3 7 finely and beautifully too. Also, you are to dress as many other people as you can ; and to teach them how to dress, if they don't know ; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace ; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds. {^Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had come from under a shoiver bath) L. {seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes). Now you needn't say you can't ; for you can : and it's what )-ou were meant to do, alwa\-s ; and to dress your houses, and your gardens, too ; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing ; and dancing, as we said, of course : and — one thing more. Dora. Our third and last virtue, I suppose } L. Yes ; on Violet's system of tripHcities. Dora. Well, we are prepared for an}-thing now. What is it } L. Cooking. Dora. Cardinal, indeed ! If only Beatrice were here with her seven handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for her ! Mary. And the interpretation ? What does ' cooking ' mean .-• L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of 138 Home Virtues. Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Re- bekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices ; and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savoury in meats ; it means care- fulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and wil- lingness, and readiness of appliance ; it means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of modern chemists ; it means much tasting, and no wasting ; it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality ; and it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always, ' ladies ' — ' loaf-givers ; ' and, as you are to see, imperatively, that everybody has something pretty to put on, — so you are to sec, yet more imperatively, that every- body has something nice to eat. {Another pause, and long draivn breath) Dora {slowly recovering herself) to Egypt. We had better have let him go to sleep, I think, after all ! L. You had better let the younger ones go to sleep, now : for I haven't half done. Isabel {panic-struck). Oh! please, please! just one quarter of an hour. L. No, Isabel ; I cannot say what I've got to say, in a quarter of an hour ; and it is too hard for you, besides : — >-ou would be l}-ing awake, and trying to make it out, half the night. That will never do. Home Virtues. 139 Isabel. Oh, please ! L. It would please me exceedingly, mousic : but there arc times when we must both be displeased ; mores the pit}-. Lily may stay for half an hour, if she likes. Lily. I can't ; because Isey never goes to sleep, if she is waiting for me to come. Isabel. Oh, yes, Lily ; I'll go to sleep to-night; I will, indeed. Lily. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes ! {To L.) You'll tell me something of what you've been saying, to-morrow, won't you } L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's onl}- in Miss Edgeworth's novels that one can do right, and have one's cake and sugar afterwards, as well ; (not that I consider the dilemma, to-night, so grave). (Lily, sighing, takes Isabel's hand.) Yes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome of it, so, than if you were to hear all the talks that ever were talked, and all the stories that ever were told. Good-night. ( The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory 'closes on LiLV, ISABEL, Florrie, and other diminutive and submissive victims) Jessie {after a pause). Wh}-, I thought }ou were so fond of Miss Edgeworth ! L. So I am ; and so you ought all to be. I can 1 40 Home Virtues. read her over and over again, without ever tiring : there's no one whose every page is so full, and so delightful ; no one who brings you into the company of pleasanter or wiser people ; no one who tells you more truly how to do right. And it is very nice, in the midst of a wild world, to have the very ideal of poetical justice done always to ones's hand : — to have everybody found out, who tells lies ; and everybody decorated with a red riband, who doesn't ; and to see the good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, receiving a grand ovation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the purpose ; and poor, dear little Rosa- mond, who chooses purple jars instead of new shoes, left at last without either her shoes or her bottle. But it isn't life ; and, in the way children might easily understand it, it isn't morals. Jessie. How do you mean we might under- stand it .'' L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be done mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an injustice to her to say that : her heroines always do right simply for its own sake, as they should ; and her examples of conduct and motive are wholly admirable. But her representation of events is false and misleading. Her good characters never are brought into the deadly trial of goodness, — the doing right, and suf- Home Virtites. 1 4 r fcring for it, quite finally. And that is life, as God arranges it. ' Taking up one's cross' does not at all mean having ovations at dinner parties, and being put over everybody else's head. Dora. But what does it mean then } That is just what we couldn't understand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing ourselves, yesterday. L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the straight one: carry- ing whatever you find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or call- ing people to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload, yourself; nor cut your cross to your own liking. Some people think it would be better for them to have it large ; and many, that they could carry it much faster if it were small ; and even those who like it largest are usually very particular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony. But all that you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as }'ou can ; and not think about what is upon it — above all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of 'virtue' is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may laugh, children, but it is. You know I \\-as to tell you about the words that began with V. Sib}-1, what docs 'virtue' mean, literally.' Sibyl. Does it mean courage } 142 Home Virtues . L. Yes ; but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the nerve; vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in Max Muller, you will find really means 'nerve,' and from it come 'vis,' and 'vir,' and 'virgin' (through vireo), and the connected word 'virga' — 'a rod;' — the green rod, or springing bough of a tree, being the type of perfect human strength, both in the use of it in the Mosaic stor}', when it becomes a serpent, or strikes the rock ; or when Aaron's bears its almonds ; and in the metaphori- cal expressions, the ' Rod out of the stem of Jesse,' and the ' Man whose name is the Branch,' and so on. And the essential idea of real virtue is that of a vital human strength, which instinctively, con- stantly, and without motive, does what is right. You must train men to this by habit, as you would the branch of a tree ; and give them instincts and man- ners (or morals) of purity, justice, kindness, and courage. Once rightly trained, they act as they should, irrespectively of all motive, of fear, or of reward. It is the blackest sign of putrescence in a national religion, when men speak as if it were the only safeguard of conduct ; and assume that, but for the fear of being burned, or for the hope of being rewarded, everybody would pass their lives in l}'ing, stealing, and murdering. I think quite one of the notablcst historical events of this century (perhaps Hovic Virtues. 143 the very notablcst), was that council of clergymen, horror-struck at the idea of any diminution in our dread of hell, at which the last of English clergymen whom one would have expected to see in such a function, rose as the devil's advocate; to tell us how impossible it was we could get on without him. Violet {after a pa?ise). But, surely, if people weren't afraid — {hesitates agaiii). L. They should be afraid of doing wrong, and of that only, my dear. Otherwise, if they only don't do wrong for fear of being punished, they Jiave done wrong in their hearts, already. Violet. Well, but surely, at least one ought to be afraid of displeasing God ; and one's desire to please Him should be one's first motive } L. He never would be pleased with us, if it were, my dear. When a father sends his son out into the world — suppose as an apprentice — fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, 'Father, I could have robbed the till to-day ; but I didn't, because I thought you wouldn't like it.' Do you think the father would be particularly pleased } (Violet is silent) He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, 'My boy, though you had no father, )-ou must not rob tills'.? And nothing is ever done so as really to please our Great Father, unless we would also 144 Home Virtues. have done it, though we had had no Father to know of it. Violet (after long pause). But, then, what con- tinual threatenings, and promises of reward there are! L. And how vain both ! with the Jews, and with all of us. But the fact is, that the threat and promise are simply statements of the Divine law, and of its consequences. The fact is truly told you, — make Avhat use you may of it : and as collateral warning, or encouragement, or comfort, the knowledge of future consequences may often be helpful to us ; but helpful chiefly to the better state when we can act without reference to them. And there's no mea- suring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and ambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their follies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity of pride, to begin with, in what is called 'giving one's self to God. As if one had ever belonged to anybody else ! Dora. But, surely, great good has come out of the monastic system — our books, — our sciences — all saved by the monks .-* L. Saved from what, m}- dear .'' From the abyss of misery and ruin which that false Christianity I Ionic Vu'iucs. 145 allowed the whole active world to live in. When it had become the principal amusement, and the most admired art, of Christian men, to cut one another's throats, and burn one another's towns ; of course the {q.\\ feeble or reasonable persons left, who desired quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got into cloisters ; and the gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and women shut themselves up, precisely where they could be of least use. They are very fine things, for us painters, now, — the tow^ers and white arches upon the tops of the rocks ; always in places where it takes a day's climbing to get at them : but the intense tragi-comedy of the thing, when one thinks of it, is unspeakable. All the good people of the world getting themselves hung up out of the way of mischief, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie ; — poor little lambs, as it were, dangling there for the sign of the Golden Fleece; or like Socrates in his basket in the 'Clouds ' ! (I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way). And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries ; or if I am, it is in their favour. I have always had a strong lean- ing that way ; and have pensively shivered with Au- gustines at St. Bernard ; and happiK^ made hay with Franciscans at Fesole ; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence ; and mourned through man}- a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. 10 146 Home Virtues. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how httle, the monks have, on the whole, done, with all that leisure, and all that good-will ! What nonsense monks characteristically wrote ; — what little progress they made in the sciences to which they devoted them- selves as a dut)', — medicine especially; — and, last and worst, what depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another, and the population round them, sink into; without either doubting their system, or reforming it ! {Scei7ig qcustions rising to lips). Hold your little tongues, children ; it's very late, and you'll make me forget -what I've to say. Fancy }-ourselves in pews, for five minutes. There's one point of possible good in the conventual system, which is always at- tractive to young girls ; and the idea is a very dangerous one ; — the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the ' things above,' or things of the next world. Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them most desirable and' lovel}' in a possible future, will not only pass their time pleasant!)', but will c\-cn acquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of manner and fea- ture, which will give them an air of peculiar sanctity in the eyes of others. Whatever real or apparent good there may be in this result, I want you to ob- Home Virtues. 147 serve, children, that wc have no real authority for the reveries to which it is owing. We are told nothing distinctly of the heavenly world ; except that it will be free from sorrow, and pure from sin. What is said of pearl gates, golden floors, and the like, is accepted as merely figurative by religious enthusiasts themselves : and whatever they pass their time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, of their inter- course, or of the appearance and employment of the heavenly powers, is entirely the product of their own imagination ; and as completely and distinctly a work of fiction, or romantic invention, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the romance is founded on religious theory or doctrine ; — that no disagreeable or wicked persons are admitted into the story ; — and that the inventor fervently hopes that some portion of it may hereafter come true, does not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or enjoyment. Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to ami- able people for pleasing themselves in this innocent way, it is beyond question, that to seclude themselves from the rough duties of life, merely to write religious romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream them, without taking so much trouble as is implied in writing, ought not to be received as an act of heroic virtue. But, observ^e, even in admitting thus much, I have assumed that the fancies are just and beautiful 148 Home Virtues, though fictitious. Now, what right have any of us to assume that our own fancies will assuredly be either the one or the other ? That they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no real proof of its not being wasted time to form them : and we may surely be led somewhat to distrust our judgment of them by observ- ing what ignoble imaginations have sometimes suffi- ciently, or even enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others. The principal source of the spirit of religious contemplation is the East ; now I have here in my hand a Byza];itine image of Christ, which, if you will look at it seriously, may, I think, at once and for ever render you cautious in the indulgence of a merely contemplative habit of mind. Observe, it is the fashion to look at such a thing only as a piece of barbarous art ; that is the smallest part of its interest. What I want you to see, is the baseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in which such a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a figure, with two small round black beads for eyes ; a gilded face, deep cut into horrible wrinkles ; an open gash for a mouth, and a distorted skeleton for a body, wrapped about, to make it fine, with striped enamel of blue and gold ; — that such a figure, I say, should ever have been thought helpful towards the conception of a Redeeming Deity, may make }'Ou, I think, very doubtful, even of the Divine approval, — Home Virtues. 149 much more of the Divine inspiration, — of reh'gious reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that your own idea of Christ would be something very different from this ; but in what does the difference consist ? Not in any more divine authority in your imagina- tion ; but in the intellectual work of six intervening centuries ; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has refined this crude conception for you, and filled you, partly with an innate sensation, partly with an ac- quired knowledge, of higher forms, — which render this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you, as it was pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite your fancy ; but your fancy is of no more authority than his was: and a point of national art-skill is quite conceivable, in which the best we can do now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers of the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine crucifix is to you. Mary. But surely, Angelico will alwaj-s retain his power over everybody } L. Yes, I should think, always ; as the gentle words of a child will : but you would be much sur- prised, Mary, if you thoroughly took the pains to analyse, and had the perfect means of analysing, that power of Angelico, — to discover its real sources. Of course it is natural, at first, to attribute it to the pure religious fervour by which he was inspired ; 150 Hoin€ Virtues. but do you suppose Angelico was really the only monk, in all the Christian world of the middle ages, who laboured, in art, with a sincere religious en- thusiasm ? Mary. No, certainly not. L. Anything more frightful, more destructive of all religious faith whatever, than such a supposition, could not be. And yet, what other monk ever produced such work ? I have myself examined carefully upwards of two thousand illuminated missals, with especial view to the discovery of any evidence of a similar result upon the art, from the monkish devotion; and utterly in vain. Mary. But then, was not Fra Angelico a man of entirely separate and exalted genius .' L. Unquestionably; and granting him to be that, the peculiar phenomenon in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its weakness. The effect of ' inspira- tion,' had it been real, on a man of consummate genius, should have been, one would have thought, to make everything that he did faultless and strong, no less than lovely. But of all men, deserving to be called ' great,' Fra Angelico permits to himself the least pardonable faults, and llie most palpable follies. There is evidently within him a sense of grace, and power of invention, as great as Ghibcrti's : — we arc in the habit of attributing those high qualities to Home Virtues. 151 ' his religious enthusiasm ; but, if they were produced by that enthusiasm in him, they ought to be produced by the same feelings in others ; and we see they arc not. Whereas, comparing him with contemporary great artists, of equal grace and invention, one pecu- liar character remains notable in him — which, \o^\- cally, we ought therefore to attribute to the religious fervour; — and that distinctive character is, the con- tented indulgence of his own weaknesses, and perse- verance in his own ignorances. Marv. But that's dreadful ! And what is the source of the peculiar charm which we all feel in his work .'' L. There are many sources of it, Mar\' ; united and seeming like one. You would never feel that charm but in the work of an entirely good man ; be sure of that : but the goodness is only the recipient and modifying element, not the creative one. Con- sider carefully what delights you in any original pic- ture of Angelico's. You will find, for one minor thing. an exquisite variety and brightness of ornamental work. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is the final result of the labour and thought of millions of artists, of all nations ; from the earliest Egyptian potters downwards — Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos Arabs, Gauls, and Northmen — all joining in the toil ; and consummating it in Florence, in that century, w ith 1 5 2 Home Virtues. such embroider}' of robe and inlaying of armour as had never been seen till then ; nor, probably, ever will be seen more. Angelico merely takes his share of this inheritance, and applies it in the tenderest way to subjects which are peculiarly acceptant of it. Bu^ the inspiration, if it exist anywhere, flashes on the knight's shield quite as radiantly as on the monk's picture. Examining farther into the sources of your emotion in the Angelico work, you will find much of the impression of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture, consummating itself in the floating, flying, and above all, in the dancing groups. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a peculiarly tender use of systems of grouping which had been long before developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna ; and the real root of it all is simply — What do you think, children.' The beauti- ful dancing of the Florentine maidens ! Dora {iudignaiit again). Now, I wonder what next ! Why not say it all depended on Hcrodias' daughter, at once t L. Yes ; it is certainly a great argument against singing, that there were once sirens. DOR.'X. Well, it may be all very fine and philo- sophical; but shouldn't I just like to read \ou the end of the second volume of ' Modern Painters ' ! L. My dear, do }-ou think any teacher could be Home I'u'tiics. 153 worth your listening to, or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and altered his mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty ? ]^ut that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra An- gelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what }'ou love : else you might come to love both alike ; or even the weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking Ov^erbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things, in to- night's talk ; and you are always to remember, children, that I do not deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the other practices of saints and anchorites. The ex:- dence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected, much less dispassionately examined : but assuredly, there is in that direction a probability, and more than a probability, of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the practice of an active, 154 Home Virtues. cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attain- ing a higher religious position, which induces us to encounter, for its exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I said, founded more on pride than piety ; and those who, in modest useful- ness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest place in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the least likely to receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable, ' Friend, go up higher.' LECTURE VIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE. LECTURE VIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE. Formal Lecture in Sc/ioolroo>n, after some practical examination of minerals. L. Wc have seen enough, children, though very httle of what might be seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by visible opposition, or contest among elements ; structures of which the variety, however great, need not surprise us : for we quarrel, ourselves, for many and slight causes ;-^much more, one should think, may crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human ways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no antago- nistic force ; but merely to the variable humour and caprice of the crystals themselves : and I have asked \-ou all to come into the schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine audience. {Great symptoms of disapproval on tJie part of said audience). Now, you need not pretend that it will 158 Crystal Caprice. not interest you; why should it not? It is true that we men are never capricious ; but that only makes us the more dull and disagreeable. You, who are crys- talline in brightness, as well as in caprice, charm in- finitely, by infinitude of change. {Audible murniurs of ' Worse and zuorse !' ' As if zve could be got over that way !' &c. The Lecturer, hozvever, observing the expression of the features to be more complacent, proceeds^ And the most curious mimicry, if not of your changes of fashion, at least of your various modes (in healthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the crystals of different coun- tries. With a little experience, it is quite pos- sible to say at a glance, in what districts certain crystals have been found ; and although, if we had knowledge extended and accurate enough, we might of course ascertain the laws and circumstances which have necessarily produced the form peculiar to each locality, this would be just as true of the fancies of the human mind. If we could know the exact cir- cumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only caprice of crystal : nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on the whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of Berne should wear their caps in the shape of butter- flies ; and the peasant girls of Munich theirs in the Crystal Caprice. 159 shape of shells, than to say \\\\y the rock-crystals of Dauphine should all have their summits of the shape of lip pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard are symmetrical; or why the fluor of Chamouni is rose-coloured, and in octahedrons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, and in cubes. Still farther re- moved is the hope, at present, of accounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single mineral, quartz; — variations upon a single theme. It has man)' forms ; but see what it will make out of this oiu\ the six-sided prism. For shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its 'column,' and the pyra- mid at the extremities its 'cap.' Now, here, first you have a straight column, as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps at the ends ; and here vou have a short thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at the ends ; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no column at all between them ! Then here is a cr}-stal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap ; and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a slender column ! Then here is a column built wholly out of little caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column built of columns and caps ; the caps all truncated about half way to their points. And in i6o Crystal Caprice. » both these last, the Httle crystals are set anyhow, and build the large one in a disorderly way ; but here is a crystal made of columns and truncated caps, set in regular terraces all the way up. Mary. But are not these, groups of crystals, rather than one cr}'stal ? L. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal ? Dora {audibly aside, to Mary, ivho is broiigJit to pause). You know you are never expected to answer, Mary. L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do }'ou mean by a group of people } Mary. Three or four together, or a good many together, like the caps in these crystals. L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the shape of one person ? (Mary still at pause) Isabel. No, because they can't; but, you know, the crystals can ; so why shouldn't they ? L. Well, they don't ; that is to say, they don't always, nor even often. Look here, Isabel. Isabel. What a nasty ugly thing ! L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful crystals; they arc a little grey and cold in colour, but most of them arc clear. lS.\BEL. But they're in such horrid, honid disorder ! dystal Caprice. i6i L. Yes ; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are naturally orderly. Some little girls' rooms are naturally ^worderly, I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they cry out so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion. Isabel. Oh! but how come they to be like that ? ■ L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking as if they thought order more wonderful than disorder ! It is wonderful — as we have seen ; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruin- ous, or wasteful, or deathful ! I look at this wild piece of crystallisation with endless astonishment. Mary. Where does it come from .^ L. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is, that it should be in a vein of fine quartz rock. If it were in a mouldering rock, it would be natural enough ; but in the midst of so fine substance, here arc the crystals tossed in a heap ; some large, myriads small, (almost as small as dust,) tumbling over each other like a terrified crowd, and glued together by the sides, and edges, and backs, and heads ; some warped, and some pushed out and in, and all spoiled, and each spoiling the rest. Mary. And how flat they all are-! L. Yes ; that's the fashion at the Tete Noire. Mary. But surely this is ruin, not caprice ? 1 1 1 62 Crystal Caprice, L. I believe it is in great part misfortune ; and we will examine these crystal troubles in next lec- ture. But if you want to see the gracefullest and happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you must go to the Hartz ; not that I ever mean to go there myself, for I want to retain the romantic feeling about the name ; and I have done myself some harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy form of the Brocken from the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the mountains be pic- turesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as I am told,) teach the crystals in them, are incom- parably pretty. They work chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish-coloured, carbonate of lime ; which comes out of a grey limestone. The goblins take the greatest possible care of its education, and see that nothing happens to it to hurt its temper : and when it may be supposed to have arrived at the crisis which is, to a well brought up mineral, what presentation at court is to a young lady — after which it is expected to set fashions — there's no end to its pretty ways of behaving. First it will make itself into pointed darts as fine as hoar-frost ; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as silk ; here into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver ; as if for the gnome princesses to wear ; here it is in beautiful liltic; plates, for them to eat off; presently Crystal Caprice. 163 it is in towers, which they might be imprisoned in ; presently in caves and cells, where they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever hear of them more ; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn ; here, some in drifts, like snow ; here, some in rays, like stars : and, though these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the mineral takes in other places, they are all taken here with such a grace that you recognise the high caste and breeding of the crystals wherever you meet them; and know at once they are Hartz-born. Of course, such fine things as these are only done by crystals which are perfectly good, and good- humoured ; and of course, also, there are ill-humoured crystals who torment each other, and annoy quieter crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious war. Here (for once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tor- menting a peaceable octahedron of fluor, in mere caprice. I looked at it the other night so long, and so wonderingly, just before putting my candle out, that I fell into another strange dream. But you don't care about dreams. Dora. No ; we didn't, yesterday ; but you know we are made up of caprice ; so we do, to-day : and }-ou must tell it us directly. L. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still much in my mind; and then, I had been looking over 164 Crystal Caprice. these Hartz things for you. and thinking of the sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in them with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern architecture. So, when I fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and St. Barbara talking together. Dora. But what had St. Barbara to do with it?* L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good architects : not St. Thomas, what- ever the old builders thought. It might be very fine, according to the monks' notions, in St. Thomas, to give all his employer's money away to the poor : but breaches of contract are bad foundations ; and I be- lieve, it was not he, but St. Barbara, who overlooked the work in all the buildings you and I care about. However that may be, it was certainly she whom I saw in my dream with Neith. Ncith was sitting weaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her shuttle slowly ; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff little gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with embroidery that it dazzled me whenever she moved ; the train of it was just like a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full of corners, and so many-coloured, and bright. Her hair fell over her shoulders in long, delicate waves, from under a little three pinnacled crown, like a * Note V. Crystal Caprice. 165 tower. She was asking Neith about the laws of architecture in Egypt and Greece ; and when Neith told her the measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said she thought they would have been better three- cornered : and when Neith told her the measures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought to hav^e had two transepts. But she was pleased when Neith told her of the temple of the dew, and of the Caryan maidens bearing its frieze : and then she thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear what sort of temples she was building herself, in the French valleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping, just as one of you might to an old lady : and certainly she talked in the sweetest way in the world to Neith ; and explained to her all about crockets and pinnacles : and Neith sat, looking very grave ; and always graver as St. Barbara went on ; till at last, I'm sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little. May {very grave herself). ' St. Barbara ? ' L. Yes, May. Why shouldn't she .-* It was very tiresome of Neith to sit looking like that. May. But, then, St. Barbara was a saint ! L. What's that, May .? May. a saint! A saint is — I'm sure you know! L. If I did, it would not make me sure that }ou knew too, May : but I don't. 1 66 Crystal Caprice. Violet {expressing the incredulity of the audience). Oh, — sir ? L. That is to say, I know that people are called saints who are supposed to be better than others : but I don't know how much better they must be, in order to be saints ; nor how nearly anybody may be a saint, and yet not be quite one ; nor whether every- body who is called a saint was one ; nor whether everybody who isn't called a saint, isn't one. {General silence ; the a?idience feeling themselves OH the verge of the hifinities — and a little s J locked — and miich pnzsled by so many ques- tions at once) L. Besides, did you never hear that verse about being ' called to be saints ' ? May {repeats Rom. i. 7). L. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called to be that .-' People in Rome only } May. Ever>'body, I suppose, whom God loves. L. What ! little girls as well as other people .•* May. All grown-up people, I mean. L. Why not little girls > Are they wickeder when they are little .-' May. Oh, I hope not. L. Why not little girls, then > {Pause.) Lily. Because, you know, wc can't be worth any- Crystal Caprice. 167 thing if we're ever so good ; — I mean, if we try to be ever so good ; and we can't do difficult things — like saints. L. I am afraid, my dear, that old people arc not more able or willing for their difficulties than you children are for yours. All I can say is, that if ever I see any of you, when you are seven or eight and twenty, knitting \-our brows over any work you want to do or to understand, as I saw you, Lily, knitting your brows over your slate this morning, I should think you very noble women. But — to come back to my dream — St. Barbara did lose her temper a little ; and I was not surprised. For you can't think how provoking Neith looked, sitting there just like a statue of sandstone ; only going on weaving, like a machine; and never quickening the cast of her shuttle ; while St. Barbara was telling her so eagerly all about the most beautiful things, and chattering away, as fast as bells ring on Christmas Eve, till she saw that Neith didn't care ; and then St. Barbara got as red as a rose, and stopped, just in time ; — or I think she would really have said something naughty. Isabel. Oh, please, but didn't Neith say anything then } L, Yes. She said, quite quietly, ' It may be very pretty, my love ; but it is all nonsense.' Isabel. Oh dear, oh dear ! and then .' 1 68 Crystal Caprice. L. Well ; then I was a little angry myself, and hoped St. Barbara would be quite angry ; but she wasn't. She bit her lips first ; and then gave a great sigh — such a wild, sweet sigh — -and then she knelt down and hid her face on Neith's knees. Then Neith smiled a little, and was moved. Isabel. Oh, I am so glad ! L. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with a flower of white lotus ; and St. Barbara sobbed once or twice, and then said : ' If you only could see how ' beautiful it is, and how much it makes people feel 'what is good and lovely; and if you could only hear ' the children singing in the Lady chapels ! ' And Neith smiled, — but still sadly, — and said, ' How do you know ' what I have seen, or heard, my love } Do you think ' all those vaults and towers of yours have been built * without me } There was not a pillar in your Giotto's ' Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by ' my spcarshaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and ' flame work which has set your little heart on fire, is ' all vanity ; and you will sec what it will come to, and ' that soon ; and none will grieve for it more than I. ' And then every one will disbelieve your pretty ' .symbols and types. Men must be spoken simply to, ' my dear, if you would guide them kindly, and long. But St. Barbara answered, that, ' Indeed she thought every one liked her work,' and that ' the people of Crystal Caprice. 169 different towns were as eager about their cathedral towers as about their privileges or their markets ; and then she asked Neith to come and build some- thing with her, w^all against tower ; and ' see whether the people will be as much pleased with your build- ing as with mine.' But Neith answered, ' I will not ' contend with you, my dear. I strive not with those * who love me ; and for those who hate me, it is not 'well to strive with me, as weaver Arachne knows. ' And remember, child, that nothing is ever done ' beautifully, which is done in rivalship ; nor nobly, ' which is done in pride.' Then St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said she was very sorry she had been so foolish ; and kissed Neith ; and stood thinking a minute : and then her eyes got bright again, and she said, she would go directly and build a chapel with five windows in it ; four for the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility, in the middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly laughed quite out, I thought ; certainly her beautiful lips lost all their sternness for an instant ; then she said, ' Well, love, build it, but do not put so many colours into your windows as you usually do ; else no one will be able to see to read, inside : and when it is built, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an archbishop.' St. Barbara started a little, I thought^ and turned as if to say something ; but changed her lyo Cjystal Caprice. mind, and gathered up her train, and went out. And Neith bent herself again to her loom, in which she was weaving a web of strange dark colours, I thought ; but perhaps it was only after the glittering of St. Barbara's embroidered train : and I tried to make out the figures in Neith's web, and confused myself among them, as one always does in dreams ; and then the dream changed altogether, and I found myself, all at once, among a crowd of little Gothic and Egyptian spirits, who were quarrelling : at least the Gothic ones were trying to quarrel ; for the Egyptian ones only sat with their hands on their knees, and their aprons sticking out very stiffly ; and stared. And after a while I began to understand what the matter was. It seemed that some of the troublesome building imps, who meddle and make continually, even in the best Gothic work, had been listening to St. Barbara's talk with Neith ; and had made up their minds that Neith had no workpeople who could build against them. They were but dull imps, as you may fancy, by their thinking that ; and never had done much, except disturbing the great Gothic building angels at their work, and playing tricks to each other; indeed, of late they had been living years and years, like bats, up under the cornices of Strasbourg and Cologne cathe- drals, with nothing to do but to make mouths at the people below. However, they thought they knew Crystal Caprice. i 7 i everything about tower building ; and those who had heard what Neith said, told the rest ; and they all flew down directly, chattering in German, like jackdaws, to show Neith's people what they could do. And they had found some of Neith's old workpeople somewhere near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on their knees ; and abused them heartily : and Neith's people did not mind, at first, but, after a while, they seemed to get tired of the noise ; and one or two rose up slowly, and laid hold of their measuring rods, and said, ' If St. Barbara's people liked to build with them, tower against pyramid, they would show them how to lay stones.' Then the Gothic little spirits threw a great many double somersaults for joy ; and put the tips of their tongues out slily to each other, on one side ; and I heard the Egyptians say, ' they must be some new kind of frog — they didn't think there was much building in them' However, the stiff old workers took their rods, as I said, and measured out a square space of sand ; but as soon as the German spirits saw that, they declared they wanted exactly that bit of ground to build on, themselves. Then the Eg\-ptian builders offered to go farther off, and the German ones said, ' Ja wohl.' But as soon as the Egyptians had measured out another square, the little Germans said they must have some of that too. Then Neith's people laughed ; and said, ' they might take as much 172 Crystal Caprice. as they liked, but they would not move the plan of their pyramid again.' Then the little Germans took three pieces, and began to build three spires directly ; one large, and two little. And when the Egyptians saw they had fairly begun, they laid their foundation all round, of large square stones : and began to build, so steadily that they had like to have swallowed up the three little German spires. So when the Gothic spirits saw that, they built their spires leaning, like the tower of Pisa, that they might stick out at the side of the pyramid. And Neith's people stared at them ; and thought it very clever, but very wrong; and on they went, in their own way, and said nothing. Then the little Gothic spirits were terribly provoked because they could not spoil the shape of the pyra- mid ; and they sat down all along the ledges of it to make faces ; but that did no good. Then they ran to the corners, and put their elbows on their knees, and stuck themselves out as far as they could, and made more faces ; but that did no good, neither. Then they looked up to the sky, and opened their mouths wide, and gobbled, and said it was too hot for work, and wondered when it would rain ; but that did no good, neither. And all the while the Egyptian spirits were laying step above step, patiently. But when the Gothic ones looked, and saw how high they had got, they said, ' Ach, Ilimmcl ! ' and flew down in a C^ysial Caprice. 173 great black cluster to the bottom ; and swept out a level spot in the sand with their wings, in no time, and began building a tower straight up, as fast as they could. And the Egyptians stood still again to stare at them ; for the Gothic spirits had got quite into a passion, and were really working very wonderfully. They cut the sandstone into strips as fine as reeds ; and put one reed on the top of another, so that you could not see where they fitted : and they twisted them in and out like basket work, and knotted them into likenesses of ugly faces, and of strange beasts biting each other : and up they went, and up still, and they made spiral staircases, at the corners, for the loaded workers to come up by (for I saw they w^ere but weak imps, and could not fly with stones on their backs), and then they made traceried galleries for them to run round by ; and so up again ; with finer and finer work, till the Egyptians wondered whether they meant the thing for a tower or a pillar : and I heard them saying to one another, ' It was nearly as pretty as lotus stalks; and if it were ' not for the ugly faces, there would be a fine temple, ' if they were going to build it all with pillars as big * as that ! ' But in a minute afterwards, — just as the Gothic spirits had carried their w'ork as high as the upper course, but three or four, of the pyramid, — the Egyptians called out to them to 'mind what they were 174 Crystal Caprice. about, for the sand was running away from under one of their tower corners.' But it was too late to mind whattheywere about; for, in another instant, the whole tower sloped aside ; and the Gothic imps rose out of it like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud ; but screaming worse than any puffins you ever heard : and down came the tower, all in a piece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the flank of the pyramid; against which it snapped short off. And of course that waked me ! Mary. What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have told us about Gothic architecture ! L. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you know that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or abolished more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies. Besides, even in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes of this kind. I have stood too often, mourning, by the grand fragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt into me. Still, you must have seen, surely, that these imps were of the Flamboyant school ; or, at least, of the German schools corre- spondent with it in extravagance. Mary. But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all this .-' L. Here ; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it is vcr)- small. But, )ou see, here is the Crystal Caprice. 175 pyramid, built of great square stones of fluor spar, straight up ; and here are the three httle pinnacles of mischievous quartz, which have set themselves, at the same time, on the same foundation ; only they lean like the tower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at the side : and here is one great spire of quartz which seems as if it had been meant to stand straight up, a little way off; and then had fallen down against the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away. In reality, it has crystallized horizontally, and termi- nated imperfectly : bat, then, by what caprice does one crystal form horizontally, when all the rest stand upright ? But this is nothing to the phantasies of fluor, and quartz, and some other such companions, when they get leave to do anything they like. I could show you fifty specimens, about every one of which you might fancy a new fairy tale. Not that, in truth, any crystals get leave to do quite what they like ; and many of them are sadly tried, and have little time for caprices — poor things! Mary. I thought they always looked as if they were either in play or in mischief! What trials have they .-* L. Trials much like our own. Sickness, and starvation ; fevers, and agues, and palsy; oppression; and old age, and the necessity of passing awa\- in their time, like all else. If there's any pit)- in }ou, 176 Crystal Caprice. you must come to-morrow, and take some part in these crystal griefs. Dora. I am sure we shall cry till our eyes are red. L. Ah, you may laugh, Dora: but I've been made grave, not once, nor twice, to see that even crystals ' cannot choose but be old ' at last. It may be but a shallow proverb of the Justice's; but it is a shrewdly wide one. Dora {pensive for once). I suppose it is very dreadful to be old ! But then {brightening again), what should we do without our dear old friends, and our nice old lecturers ^ L. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little as one I know of Dora. And if they all meant as little what they say, would they not deserve it ^ But we'll come — • we'll come, and cry. LECTURE IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS. 12 LECTURE IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS. Working Lecture in Schoolroom. L. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if crystals might live, and play, and quarrel, and behave ill or well, according to their characters, without inter- ruption from anything else. But so far from this being so, nearly all crystals, whatever their characters, have to live a hard life of it, and meet with many misfor- tunes. If we could see far enough, we should find, indeed, that, at the root, all their vices were misfor- tunes : but to-day I want you to see what sort of troubles the best crystals have to go through, occa- sionally, by no fault of their own. This black thing, which is one of the prettiest of the very few pretty black things in the world, is called ' Tourmaline.' It may be transparent, and green, or red, as well as black ; and then no stone can be prettier ; (only, all the light that gets into it, I believe, comes out a good deal the worse ; and is not itself again for a long while). But this is the commonest state of it, — opaque, and as black as jet. i8o Crystal Sorrovos. Mary. What does ' Tourmaline ' mean ? L. They say it is Ceylanese, and I don't know Ceylanese ; but we may always be thankful for a graceful word, whatever it means. Mary. And what is it made oi} L. A little of everything ; there's always flint, and clay, and magnesia in it ; and the black is iron, accord- ing to its fancy ; and there's boracic acid, if you know what that is ; and if you don't, I cannot tell you to- day; and it doesn't signify: and th'ere's potash, and soda; and, on the whole, the chemistiy of it is more like a mediaeval doctor's prescription, than the making of a respectable mineral: but it may, per- haps, be owing to the strange complexity of its make, that it has a notable habit which makes it, to me, one of the most interesting of minerals. You see these two crystals are broken right across, in many places, just as if they had been shafts of black marble fallen from a ruinous temple ; and here they lie, imbedded in white quartz, fragment succeeding fragment, keep- ing the line of the original crystal, while the quartz fills up the intervening spaces. Now tourmaline has a trick of doing this, more than any other mineral I know : here is another bit which I picked up on the glacier of Macugnaga ; it is broken, like a pillar built of very flat broad stones, into about thirty joints, and all these arc heaved and warped away Crystal Sorrows. l8i from each other sideways, ahnost into a line of steps ; and then all is filled up with quartz paste. And here, lastly, is a green Indian piece, in which the pillar is first disjointed, and then wrung round into the shape of an S. Mary. How can this have been done ? L. There are a thousand ways in which it may have been done ; the difficulty is not to account for the doing of it ; but for the showing of it in some crystals, and not in others. You never by any chance get a quartz crystal broken or twisted in this way. If it break or twist at all, which it does sometimes, like the spire of Dijon, it is by its own will or fault ; it never seems to have been passively crushed. But, for the forces which cause this passive ruin of the tour- maline, — here is a stone which will show you multi- tudes of them in operation at once. It is known as ' brecciated agate,' beautiful, as you see ; and highly valued as a pebble : yet, so far as I can read or hear, no one has ever looked at it with the least attention. At the first glance, you see it is made of very fine red striped agates, which have been broken into small pieces, and fastened together again by paste, also of agate. There would be nothing won- derful in this, if this were all. It is well known that by the movements of strata, portions of rock are often shattered to pieces : — well known also that 1 82 Crystal Sorrows, agate is a deposit of flint by water under certain conditions of heat and pressure : there is, therefore, nothing wonderful in an agate's being broken ; and nothing wonderful in its being mended with the solu- tion out of which it was itself originally congealed. And with this explanation, most people, looking at a brecciated agate, or brecciated anything, seem to be satisfied. I was so myself, for twenty years ; but, lately happening to stay for some time at the Swiss Baden, where the beach of the Limmat is almost wholly composed of brecciated limestones, I began to examine them thoughtfully ; and perceived, in the end, that they were, one and all, knots of as rich mystery as any poor little human brain was ever lost in. That piece of agate in your hand, Mary, will show you many of the common phenomena of breccias : but you need not knit your brows over it in that way ; depend upon it, neither you nor I shall ever know anything about the way it was made, as long as we live. Dora. That does not seem much to depend upon. L. Pardon me, puss. When once we gain some real notion of the extent and the unconquerableness of our ignorance, it is a very broad and restful thing to depend upon ; you can throw yourself upon it at ease, as on a cloud, to feast with the gods. You do not thenceforward trouble yourself, nor any one Crystal Sorroivs. 183 else, with theories, or the contradiction of theories ; you neither get headache nor heartburning ; and you never more waste your poor Httle store of strength, or allowance of time. However, there are certain facts, about this agate- making, which I can tell you ; and then you may look at it in a pleasant wonder as long as you like ; plea- sant wonder is no loss of time. First, then, it is not broken freely by a blow ; it is slowly wrung, or ground, to pieces. You can only with extreme dimness conceive the force exerted on moun- tains in transitional states of movement. You have all read a little geology ; and you know how coolly geo- logists talk of mountains being raised or depressed. They talk coolly of it, because they are accustomed to the fact ; but the very universality of the fact prevents us from ever conceiving distinctly the con- ditions of force involved. You know I was living last year in Savoy : my house was on the back of a sloping mountain, which rose gradually for two miles behind it ; and then fell at once in a great precipice towards Geneva, going down three thousand feet in four or five cliffs, or steps. Now that whole group of cliffs had simply been torn away by sheer strength from the rocks below, as if the whole mass had been as soft as biscuit. Put four or five captains' biscuits on the floor, on 1 84 Crystal Sorrows. the top of one another ; and try to break them all in half, not by bending, but by holding one half down, and tearing the other halves straight up ; — of course you will not be able to do it, but you will feel and comprehend the sort of force needed. Then, fancy each captains' biscuit a bed of rock, six or seven hundred feet thick ; and the whole mass torn straight through ; and one half heaved up three thou- sand feet, grinding against the other as it rose, — and you will have some idea of the making of the Mont Saleve. May. But it must crush the rocks all to dust ! L. No ; for there is no room for dust. The pres- sure is too great ; probably the heat developed also so great that the rock is made partly ductile ; but the worst of it is, that we can never see these parts of mountains in the state they were left in at the time of their elevation ; for it is precisely in these rents and dislocations that the crystalline power principally exerts itself It is essentially a styptic power, and wherever the earth is torn, it heals and binds : nay, the torture and grieving of the earth seem necessary to bring out its full energy ; for you only find the crystalline living power fully in action, where the rents and faults are deep and many. Dora. If you please, sir, — would you toll us — what arc ' faults ' } Crystal Sorrows. 1 85 L. You never heard of such things ? Dora. Never in all our lives. L. When a vein of rock which is going on smoothly, is interrupted by another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it out, so that it has to begin again in another place — that is called a fault. / always think it ought to be called the fault of the vein that interrupts it ; but the miners always call it the fault of the vein that is interrupted. Dora. So it is, if it docs not begin again where it left off. L. Well, that is certainly the gist of the business : but, whatever good-natured old lecturers may do, the rocks have a bad habit, when they are once inter- rupted, of never asking ' Where was I } ' Dora. When the two halves of the dining table came separate, yesterday, was that a ' fault ' ? L. Yes ; but not the table's. However, it is not a bad illustration, Dora. When beds of rock are only interrupted by a fissure, but remain at the same level, like the two halves of the table, it is not called a fault, but only a fissure ; but if one half of the table be either tilted higher than the other, or pushed to the side, so that the two parts will not fit, it is a fault. You had better read the chapter on faults in Jukes's Geology ; then you will know all about it. And this rent that I am telling you of in the Salcve, is 1 86 Crystal Sorrozvs. one only of myriads, to which are owing the forms of the Alps, as, I believe, of all great mountain chains. Wherever you see a precipice on any scale of real magnificence, you will nearly always find it owing to some dislocation of this kind ; but the point of chief wonder to me, is the delicacy of the touch by which these gigantic rents have been apparently accomplished. Note, however, that we have no clear evidence, hitherto, of the time taken to produce any of them. We know that a change of temperature alters the position and the angles of the atoms of crystals, and also the entire bulk of rocks. We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part of all subterranean, action, temperatures are continually changing, and therefore masses of rock must be ex- panding or contracting, with infinite slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must result in mechani- cal strain somewhere, both in their own substance, and ill that of the rocks surrounding them ; and we can form no conception of the result of irresistible pressure, applied so as to rend and raise, with imperceptible slowness of gradation, masses thousands of feet in thickness. We want some experiments tried on masses of iron and stone ; and we can't get them tried, because Christian creatures never will seriously and sufficiently spend money, except to find out the shortest ways of killing each other. But, besides this Crystal Sorrows. 187 slow kind of pressure, there is evidence of more or less sudden violence, on the same terrific scale ; and, through it all, the wonder, as I said, is always to me the delicacy of touch. I cut a block of the Sal^ve limestone from the edge of one of the principal faults which have formed the precipice ; it is a lovely com- pact limestone, and the fault itself is filled up with a red breccia, formed of the crushed fragments of the torn rock, cemented by a rich red crystalline paste. I have had the piece I cut from it smoothed, and polished across the junction ; here it is ; and you may now pass your soft little fingers over the sur- face, without so much as feeling the place where a rock which all the hills of England might have been sunk in the body of, and not a summit seen, was torn asunder through that whole thickness, as a thin dress is torn when you tread upon it. {TJie audience examine t/ie stone, and touch it timidly ; but the ^natter remaijis inconceivable to tlicm?) Mary, {struck by the beauty of the stone). But this is almost marble .'' L. It is quite marble. And another singular point in the business, to my mind, is that these stones, which men have been cutting into slabs, for thousands of years, to ornament their principal buildings Avith, — and which, under the general name of ' marble,' have 1 88 Crystal Sorrows. been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of archi- tecture, among all civilised nations, — are precisely those on which the signs and brands of these earth- agonies have been chiefly struck ; and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is not the record of their ancient torture. What a boundless capacity for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the human mind ! Fancy reflective beings, who cut and polish stones for three thousand years, for the sake of the pretty stains upon them ; and educate themselves to an art at last, (such as it is,) of imi- tating these v^eins by dextrous painting ; — and never a curious soul of them, all that while, asks, ' What painted the rocks ? ' {TJie audience look dejected, and ashamed of themselves^ The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through our lives ; and it is only by pinching ourselves very hard that we ever come to see, or understand, anything. At least, it is not always we who pinch ourselves ; sometimes other people pinch us ; which I suppose is very good of them, — or other things, which I suppose is very proper of them. But it is a sad life ; made up chiefly of naps and pinches. {Some of the audience, on this, appear i7ig to think that the others require pinchifig, the LECTURER changes the subject) Crystal Sorrows. 189 Now, however, for once, look at a piece of marble carefully, and think about it. You sec this is one side of the fault ; the other side is down or up, nobody- knows where ; but, on this side, you can trace the evidence of the dragging and tearing action. All along the edge of this marble, the ends of the fibres of the rock are torn, here an inch, and there half an inch, away from each other ; and you see the exact places where they fitted, before they were torn sepa- rate ; and you see the rents are now all filled up with the sanguine paste, full of the broken pieces of the rock ; the paste itself seems to have been half melted, and partly to have also melted the edge of the fragments it contains, and then to have crystallised with them, and round them. And the brecciated agate I first showed you contains exactly the same phenomena ; a zoned crystallisation going on amidst the cemented fragments, partly altering the struc- ture of those fragments themselves, and subject to continual change, either in the intensity of" its own power, or in the nature of the materials submitted to it ; — so that, at one time, gravity acts upon them, and disposes them in horizontal layers, or causes them to droop in stalactites ; and at another, gravity is entirely defied, and the substances in solution are crystallised in bands of equal thickness on every side of the cell. It would require a course of lee- 1 90 Crystal Sorrows. tures longer than these, (I have a great mhid, — you have behaved so saucily — to stay and give them) to describe to you the phenomena of this kind, in agates and chalcedonies only ; — nay, there is a single sarcophagus in the British Museum, covered with grand sculpture of the i8th dynasty, which contains in the magnificent breccia (agates and jaspers imbedded in porphyry), out of which it is hewn, material for the thought of years ; and re- cord of the earth-sorrow of ages, in comparison with the duration of which, the Egyptian letters tell us but the history of the evening and morning of a day. Agates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their past history ; but all crystallisation goes on under, and partly records, circumstances of this kind — cir- cumstances of infinite variety, but always involving difficulty, interruption, and change of condition at different times. Observe, first, you have the whole mass of the rock in motion, either contracting itself, and so gradually widening the cracks ; or being compressed, and thereby closing them, and crushing their edges ; — and, if one part of its substance be softer, at the given temperature, than another, pro- bably squeezing that softer substance out into the veins. Then the veins themselves, when the rock leaves them open by its contraction, act with various power of suction upon its substance ; — by capillary Crystal Sorrows. igi attraction when they are fine, — by that of pure va- cuity when they are larger, or by changes in the con- stitution and condensation of the mixed gases with which they have been originally filled. Those gases themselves may be supplied in all variation of volume and power from below ; or, slowly, by the decomposi- tion of the rocks themselves: and, at changing tem- peratures, must exert relatively changing forces of decomposition and combination on the walls of the veins they fill ; while water, at every degree of heat and pressure, (from beds of everlasting ice, alternate with cliffs of native rock, to volumes of red hot, or white hot, steam) congeals, and drips, and throbs, and thrills, from crag to crag ; and breathes from pulse to pulse of foaming or fiery arteries, whose beating is felt through chains of the great islands of the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift your bracelets, and makes whole kingdoms of the world quiver in deadly earthquake, as if they were light as aspen leaves. And, remember, the poor little crystals have to live their lives, and mind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as best they may. They are wonderfully like human creatures, — forget all that is going on if they don't sec it, however dreadful ; and never think what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving, and indolent or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no thought whatever of the '192 Crystal Sorrows. lava or the flood which may break over them any day, and evaporate them into air bubbles, or wash them into a sokition of salts. And you may look at them, once understanding the surrounding conditions of their fate, with an endless interest. You will see crowds of unfortunate little crystals, who have been forced to constitute themselves in a hurry, their dis- solving element being fiercely scorched away ; you will see them doing their best, bright and numberless, but tiny. Then you will find indulged crystals, who have had centuries to form themselves in, and have changed their mind and ways continually ; and have been tired, and taken heart again ; and have been sick, and got well again ; and thought they would try a different diet, and then thought better of it ; and made but a poor use of their advantages, after all. And others you will see, who have begun life as wicked crystals ; and then have been impressed by alarming circumstances, and have become converted crystals, and behaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen away again, and ended, but discreditably, perhaps even in decomposition ; so that one doesn't know what will become of them. And .sometimes you will .see deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are deadly to all near them ; and sometimes you will see deceitful crystals, that seem flint-edged, like our little quartz-crystal of a housekeeper here, (hush ! Dora,) Crystal Sorrows. 193 and are endlessly gentle and true wherever gentleness and truth arc needed. And sometimes you will see little child-crystals put to school like school-girls, and made to stand in rows ; and taken the greatest care of, and taught how to hold themselves up, and behave: and sometimes you will see unhappy little child-crystals left to lie about in the dirt, and pick up their living, and learn manners, where they can. And sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like great capitalists and little labourers ; and politico-economic crystals teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat each other; and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise ones ; and impatient crystals spoiling the plans of patient ones, irreparably ; just as things go on in the world. And sometimes you may see hypocritical crystals taking the shape of others, though they are nothing like in their minds ; and vampire crj-stals eating out the hearts of others ; and hermit-crab crystals living in the shells of others ; and parasite crystals living on the means of others ; and courtier crystals glittering in attendance upon others ; and all these, besides the two great companies of war and peace, who ally themselves, resolutely to attack, or resolutely to defend. And for the close, you see the broad shadow and deadly force of inevitable fate, above all this : you see the multitudes of crystals 194 Crystal Sorrows. whose time has come ; not a set time, as with us, but yet a time, sooner or later, when they all must give up their crystal ghosts : — when the strength by which they grew, and the strength given them to breathe, pass away from them ; and they fail, and are con- sumed, and vanish away; and another generation is brought to life, framed out of their ashes. Mary. It is very terrible. Is it not the complete fulfilment, down into the very dust, of that verse : ' The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain ' .■* L. I do not know that it is in pain, Mary: at least, the evidence tends to show that there is much more pleasure than pain, as soon as sensation becomes possible. LUCILLA. But then, surely, if we are told that it is pain, it must be pain } L. Yes ; if we are told ; and told in the way you mean, Lucilla ; but nothing is said of the propor- tion to pleasure. Unmitigated pain would kill any of us in a few hours ; pain equal to our pleasures would make us loathe life ; the word itself cannot be applied to the lower conditions of matter, in its ordinary sense. But wait till to-morrow to ask me about this. To-morrow is to be kept for questions and difficulties; let us keep to the plain facts to-day. There is yet one group of facts connected with this Crystal Sorrows. 195 rending of the rocks, which I especially want you to notice. You know, when you have mended a very old dress, quite meritoriously, till it won't mend any more Egypt iititermpting). Could not you sometimes take gentlemen's work to illustrate by ? L. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, Egypt ; and when it is useful, girls cannot easily understand it. Dora. I am sure we should understand it better than gentlemen understand about sewing. L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction, when I touch upon matters of the kind too high for me ; and besides, I never intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of sew- ing ; — though you always seem to think I am laughing at you. In all seriousness, illustrations from sewing are those which Neith likes me best to use ; and which young ladies ought to like every- body to use. What do you think the beautiful word * wife ' comes from } Dora [tossing Iter head). I don't think it is a particularly beautiful word, . L. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think * bride ' sounds better ; but wife's the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word in which the English and Latin languages conquer the French and 196 Crystal Sorrows. the Greek. I hope the French will some day get a word for it, yet, instead of their dreadful ' femme.' But what do you think it comes from ? Dora. I never did think about it. L. Nor you, Sibyl ■? Sibyl. No ; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there. L. Yes ; but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do mean something. Wife means ' weaver.' You have all the right to call yourselves little ' housewives,' when you sew neatly. Dora. But I don't think we want to call our- selves ' little housewives.' L. You must either be house-Wives, or house- Moths ; remember that. In the deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and embroider them ; or feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had better let me keep my sewing illustration, and help me out with it. Dora. Well, we'll hear it, under protest. L. You have heard it before ; but with reference to other matters. When it is said, 'no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else it taketh from the old,' does it not mean that the new piece tears the old one away at the sewn edge .'' Dora. Yes ; certainly. L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with crystal Sorrows. 197 strong thread, does not the whole edge come away sometimes, when it tears again ? Dora. Yes ; and then it is of no use to mend it any more. L. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that ; but the same thing happens to them continually. I told you they were full of rents, or veins. Large masses of rock are sometimes as full of veins as your hand is ; and of veins nearly as fine ; (only you know a rock vein does not mean a tube, but a crack or cleft). Now these clefts are mended, usually, with the strongest material the rock can find ; and often literally with threads ; for the gradually opening rent seems to draw the substance it is filled with into fibres, which cross from one side of it to the other, and are partly crystalline ; so that, when the crystals become distinct, the fissure has often exactly the look of a tear, brought together with strong cross stitches. Now when this is completely done, and all has been fastened and made firm, perhaps some new change of temperature may occur, and the rock begin to contract again. Then the old vein must open wider; or else another open elsewhere. If the old vein widen, it may do so at its centre ; but it constantly happens, with well filled veins, that the cross stitches are too strong to break : the walls of the vein, instead, are torn awa}' by them ; and another iqS Crystal Sorrows. little supplementary vein — often three or four succes- sively — will be thus formed at the side of the first. Mary. That is really very much like our work. But what do the mountains use to sew with } L. Quartz, whenever they can get it : pure lime- stones are obliged to be content with carbonate of lime; but most mixed rocks can find some quartz for themselves. Here is a piece of black slate from the Buet: it looks merely like dr>' dark mud; — you could not think there was any quartz in it; but, you see, its rents are all stitched together with beautiful white thread, which is the purest quartz, so close drawn that you can break it like flint, in the mass ; but, where it has been exposed to the weather, the fine fibrous structure is shown: and, more than that, you see the threads have been all twisted and pulled aside, this way and the other, by the warpings and shifting of the sides of the vein as it widened. Mary. It is wonderful ! But is that going on still } Are the mountains being torn and sewn together again at this moment } L. Yes, certainly, my dear : but I think, just as certainly (though geologists differ on this matter), not with the violence, or on the scale, of their ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to be tending towards a condition of at least temporary rest ; and that groaning and travailing of the Crystal Sorrows. 199 creation, as, assuredly, not wholly in pain, is not, in the full sense, ' until now.' Mary. I want so much to ask you about that 1 Sibyl, Yes ; and we all want to ask you about a great many other things besides. L. It seems to me that you have got quite as many new ideas as are good for any of you at present : and I should not like to burden you with more ; but I must see that those you have are clear, if I can make them so ; so we will have one more talk for answer of questions, mainly. Think over allv the ground, and make your difficulties thoroughly presentable. Then we'll see what we can make of them. Dora. They shall all be dressed in their very best ; and curtsey as they come in. L. No, no, Dora ; no curtseys, if you please. I had enough of them the day you all took a fit of reverence, and curtsied mc out of the room. Dora. But, you know, we cured ourselves of the fault, at once, by that fit. We have never been the ■ least respectful since. And the difficulties will only curtsey themselves out of the room, I hope ; — come in at one door — vanish at the other. L. What a pleasant world it would be, if all its difficulties were taught to behave so ! However, one can generally make something, or (better still) 200 Crystal Sorrows. nothing, or at least less, of them, if they thoroughly know their own minds ; and your difficulties — I must say that for you, children, — generally do know their own minds, as you do yourselves. Dora. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow so much as that girls had any minds to know. L. They will at least admit you have minds to change, Dora. Mary. You might have left us the last speech, without a retouch. But we'll put our little minds, such as they are, in the best trim we can, for to- morrow. LECTURE X. THE CRYSTAL REST. LECTURE X. THE CRYSTAL REST. Evening. The fireside. L.'s arm-chair in the comfortablest corner. L. {perceiving various arrangements being made of footstool, cnshion, screen, and the like). Yes, yes, it's all very fine ; and I am to sit here to be asked questions till supper-time, am I ? Dora. I don't think you can have any supper to-night : — we've got so much to ask. Lily. Oh, Miss Dora I We can fetch it him here, you know, so nicely ! L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with com- petitive examination going on over one's plate ; the competition being among the examiners. Really, now that I know what teasing things girls are, I don't so much wonder that people used to put up patiently with the dragons who took tJiem for supper. But I can't help myself, I suppose ; — no thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll answer as civilly as may be. 204 The Crystal Rest. Dora. We don't so much care about being an- swered civilly, as about not being asked things back again. L. ' Ayez seulement la patience que je parle.' There shall be no requitals. Dora. Well, then, first of all — What shall we ask first, Mary .'* Mary. It does not matter. I think all the questions come into one, at last, nearly. Dora. You know, you always talk as if the crystals were alive ; and we never understand how much you are in play, and how much in earnest. That's the first thing. L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how much I am in earnest. The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle you. They look as if they were alive, and make me speak as if they were ; and I do not in the least know how much truth there is in the appearance. I'm not to ask things back again to-night, but all questions of this sort lead necessarily to the one main question, which we asked, before, in vain, ' What is it to be alive t ' Dora. Yes; but we want to come back to that: for we've been reading scientific books about the ' conservation of forces,' and it seems all so grand, and wonderful ; and the experiments are so pretty ; and I suppose it must be all right : but then the TJic Crystal Rest. 205 books never speak as if there were any such thing as ' hfe.' L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, certainly, Dora : but they are beautifully right as far as they go : and life is not a convenient element to deal with. They seem to have been getting some of it into and out of bottles, in their ' ozone ' and * antizone ' lately: but they still know little of it; and, certainly, I know less. Dora. You promised not to be provoking, to- night. L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know less of the secrets of life than the philosophers do, I yet know one corner of ground on which we artists can stand, literally as ' Life Guards ' at bay, as steadily as the Guards at Inkermann ; however hard the philosophers push. And you may stand with us, if once you learn to draw nicely. Dora. I'm sure we are all trying ! but tell us where we may stand. L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. To a painter the essential character of anything is the form of it ; and the philosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for instance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy, (or whatever else they like to call it) in a tea-kettle as in a Gier- eagle. Very good ; that is so; and it is very interest- 206 The Crystal Rest. ing. It requires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest ; and as much more to bring him down again on a hare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our princi- pal interest to the difference in their forms. For us, the primarily cognisable facts, in the two things, are, that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak ; the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings ;— not to speak of the distinction also of volition, which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode of force ; — but then, to an artist, the form, or mode, is the gist of the business. The kettle chooses to sit still on the hob ; the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfilment of it, which appears to us the more interesting circumstance ; — though the other is very interesting too. Exceedingly so ! Don't laugh, children ; the philosophers have been doing quite splendid work lately, in their own vv^ay : especially, the transformation of force into light is a great piece of systematised discovery ; and this notion about the sun's being supplied with his flame by ceaseless meteoric hail is grand, and looks very likely to be true. Of course, it is only the old gun- lock, — flint and steel, — on a large scale: but the order The Crystal Rest. 207 and majesty of it are sublime. Still, we sculptors and painters care little about it. ' It is very fine,' we say, ' and very useful, this knocking the light out of the *sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of planets. * But you may hail away, so, for ever, and you will * not knock out what we can. Here is a bit of silver, * not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single * hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd 'years ago, hit out the head of the Apollo of ' Clazomenae. It is merely a matter of form ; but if * any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary * system to hammer with, can hit out such another 'bit of silver as this, — we will take off our hats to 'you. For the present, we'keep them on.' Mary. Yes, I understand ; and that is nice ; but I don't think we shall any of us like having only form to depend upon. L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear. Mary. It does not seem to separate us from the dust of the ground. It is that breathing of the life which we want to understand. L. So you should : but hold fast to the form, and defend that first, as distinguished from the mere transition of forces. Discern the moulding hand of the potter commanding the clay, from his merely beating foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find 2o8 The Crystal Rest. incense, in the vase, afterwards, — well : but it is cu- rious how far mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. For instance, with regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force — light ; — they never consider how far the existence of it depends on the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the formal arrangement which we call an eye. The German philosophers began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling us there was no such thing as light at all, unless we chose to see it : now, German and English, both, have reversed their engines, and insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is, though nobody could ever see it The fact being that the force must be there, and the eyes there; and 'light' means the effect of the one on the other; — and perhaps, also — (Plato saw farther into that mystery than any one has since, that I know of), — on something a little way within the eyes ; but we may stand quite safe, close behind the retina, and defy the philosophers. Sibyl. But I don't care so much about defying the philosophers, if only one could get a clear idea of life, or soul, for one's self. L. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, in that cave of yours, than any of us. I was just going to ask you about inspiration, and the golden bough, and the like ; only I remembered I was not to TJic Crystal Rest. 209 ask anything. But, will not you, at least, tell us whether the ideas of Life, as the power of putting things together, or ' making ' them ; and of Death, as the power of pushing things separate, or ' unmaking ' them, may not be very simply held in balance against each other ? Sibyl. No, I am not in my cave to-night ; and cannot tell you anything, L. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a great separator ; it is little more than the expan- sion of Molicre's great sentence, ' II s'ensuit de la, que tout ce qu'il y a de beau est dans les diction- naires ; il n'y a que les mots qui sont transposes.' But when you used to be in your cave, Sibyl, and to be inspired, there was, (and there remains still in some small measure) beyond the merely formative and sustaining power, another, which we painters call ' passion ' — -I don't know what the philosophers call it ; we know it makes people red, or white ; and therefore it must be something, itself: and perhaps it is the most truly ' poetic ' or ' making ' force of all, creating a world of its own out of a glance, or a sigh : and the want of passion is perhaps the truest death, or ' unmaking ' of every- thing ; — even of stones. ]5y the way, you were all reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the other day >. 14 2IO TJie Crystal Rest. Sibyl. Because you had told us it was so difficult, you thought it could not be ascended. L. Yes ; I believed the Aiguille Verte would have held its own. But do you recollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, when he first felt sure of reaching the summit ">. Sibyl. Yes, it was, ' Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous etes morte, vous etes morte ! ' L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. Now can you at all fancy the difference between that feeling of triumph in a mountain's death ; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in its life — ' Quantus Athos, aut quantus Er^^x, aut ipse coruscis Quum fremit ilicibus quantus, gaudetque nivali Venice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.' Dora. You must translate for us mere house- keepers, please ; — whatever the cave-keepers may know about it. Mary. Will Drydcn do } L. No. Dryden is a far way worse than no- thing, and nobody will 'do.' You can't translate it. ]5ut this is all you need know, that the lines are full of a passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood, or protecting power, over Italy ; and of sympathy with their joy in their snowy strength in heaven ; and with The Crystal Rest. 2 1 1 the same joy, shuddering through all the leaves of their forests. Mary. Yes, that is a difference indeed ! but then, you know, one can't help feeling that it is fanciful. It is very delightful to imagine the mountains to be alive ; but then, — are they alive ? L. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the feelings of the purest and most mightily passioned human souls are likely to be the truest. Not, indeed, if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind themselves to it that they may please themselves with passion ; for then they are no longer pure : but if, con- tinually seeking and accepting the truth as far as it is discernible, they trust their Maker for the integrity of the instincts He has gifted them with, and rest in the sense of a higher truth which they cannot demonstrate, I think they will be most in the right, so. Dora and Jessie {clapping their hands). Then we really may believe that the mountains are living.? L. You may at least earnestly believe, that the presence of the spirit which culminates in your own life, shows itself in dawning, wherever the dust of the earth begins to assume any orderly and lovely state. You will find it impossible to separate this idea of gradated manifestation from that of the vital power. Things arc not either wholly alive, or wholly dead. They are less or more alive. Take the nearest. 212 The Crystal Rest. most easily examined instance — the life of a flower Notice what a different degree and kind of life there is in the calyx and the corolla. The calyx is nothing but the swaddling clothes of the flower ; the child- blossom is bound up in it, hand and foot ; guarded in it, restrained by it, till the time of birth. The shell is hardly more subordinate to the germ in the