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THE 
 
 ETHICS OF THE DUST' 
 
 LITTLE HOUSEWIVES 
 
 ON 
 
 The Elements of Crystallization. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., 
 
 Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Sladk 
 Professor of Fine Atr, 
 
 CHICAGO 
 DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & C^ 
 
 407 Dearborn Street 
 
\...' 
 
 4^.. 
 
PERSON/E. 
 
 Old Lecturer (of incalculable age). 
 Frorrie, 
 
 on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9 
 
 Isabel, "11 
 
 May, "II 
 
 Lily, "12 
 
 Kathleen, " H 
 
 LuciLLA, "15 
 
 Violet, "16 
 
 Dora, (who has the keys and is housekeeper), " 17 
 
 Egypt (so called from her dark eyes), . . ** 17 
 Jessie (who somehow always makes the room 
 
 look brighter when she is in it), . . " 18 
 Mary (of whom everybody, including the Old 
 
 Lecturer, is in great awe), • • . " 20 
 
 83625 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XECTURE. PAGF- 
 
 I. The Valley of Diamonds 9- 
 
 II. The Pyramid Builders 27 
 
 III. The Crystal Life 45, 
 
 IV. The Crystal Orders 65, 
 
 V. Crystal Virtues Sy 
 
 VI. Crystal Quarrels 109 
 
 VII. Home Virtues 133, 
 
 VIII. Crystal Caprice i6l 
 
 IX. Crystal Sorrows 183- 
 
 X. The Crystal Rest 207 
 
 Notes 23^ 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE DUST. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE VA LLE Y OF DIA MONDS. 
 
 A very idle ialky by the dining-room fire^ after raisin* 
 and-almond time. 
 
 Old Lecturer ; Florrie, Isabel, May, Lily, and 
 Sibyl. 
 
 Old Lecturer (L.). Come here, Isabel, 
 and tell me what the make-believe was, this 
 afternoon. 
 
 Isabel {arranging herself very primly on 
 the foot-stool). Such a dreadful one ! Florrie 
 and I were lost in the Valley of Diamonds. 
 
 L. What ! Sindbad's, which nobody could 
 get out of } 
 
 Isabel. Yes ; but Florrie and I got out 
 of it. 
 
 L. So I see. At least, I see you did ; but 
 are you sure Florrie did } 
 
 Isabel. Quite sure. 
 
 Florrie (^putting her head round fr 
 
10 Zbc lBmc6 ot the ]S>\X6U 
 
 hind L. 's sofa'Cushion), Quite sure. (Dis-- 
 appears again.) 
 
 L. I think I could be made to feel surer 
 about it. 
 
 (Florrie reappears, gives L. a kiss, and 
 ag^in exit. ) 
 
 L. I suppose it s all right ; but how did 
 you manage it? 
 
 Isabel. Well, you know, the eagle that 
 took up Sindbad was very large — very, very 
 large — the largest of all the eagles. 
 
 L. How large were the others ? 
 
 Isabel. I don't quite know — they were sa 
 far off. But this one was, oh, so big ! and 
 it had great wings, as wide as — twice over 
 the ceiling. So, when it was picking up 
 Sindbad, Florrie and I thought it wouldn't 
 know if we got on its back too : so I got up 
 first, and then I pulled up Florrie, and we put 
 our arms round its neck, and away it flew. 
 
 L. But why did you want to get out of the 
 valley } and why haven't you brought me 
 some diamonds.'* 
 
 Isabel. It was because of the serpents. I 
 couldn't pick up even the least little bit of a 
 diamond, I was so frightened. 
 
 L. You should not have minded the ser- 
 pents. 
 
 Isabel. Oh, but suppose that they had 
 minded me .? 
 
 L. We all of us mind you a little too 
 much, Isabel, I'm afraid. 
 
 ''SABEL. No— no — no, indeed. 
 
Zbc Dalles of Diamonds, ir 
 
 L. I tell you what, Isabel — I don't believe 
 either Sindbad, or Florrie, or you, ever were 
 in the Valley of Diamonds. 
 
 Isabel. You naughty ! when I tell you we 
 were ! 
 
 L. Because you say you were frightened 
 at the serpents. 
 
 Isabel. And wouldn't you have been ? 
 
 L. Not at those serpents. Nobody wha 
 really goes into the valley is ever frightened 
 at them — they are so beautiful. 
 
 Isabel {sudde7ily serious). But there's no- 
 real Valley of Diamonds, is there } 
 
 L. Yes, Isabel ; very real indeed. 
 
 Florrie {reappearing). Oh, where ? Tell 
 me about it. 
 
 L. I cannot tell you a great deal about it ; 
 only I know it is very different from Sind- 
 bad's. In his valley, there was only a dia- 
 mond lying here and there ; but, in the real 
 valley, there are diamonds covering the 
 grass in showers every morning, instead of 
 dew : and there are clusters of trees, which 
 look like lilac-trees ; but, in spring, all their 
 blossoms are of amethyst. 
 
 Florrie. But there can't be any serpents, 
 there, then } 
 
 L. Why not .? 
 
 Florrie. Because they don't come into 
 such beautiful places. 
 
 L. I never said it was a beautiful place. 
 
 Florrie. What I not with diamonds 
 strewed about it like dew ? 
 
12 ^be JBtbiCB ot tbc Bust 
 
 L. That's according to your fancy, Flor- 
 rie. For myself, I like dew better. 
 
 Isabel. Oh, but the dew won't stay ; it all 
 dries ! 
 
 L. Yes ; and it would be much nicer if 
 the diamonds dried too, for the people in 
 the valley have to sweep them off the grass, 
 in heaps, whenever they want to walk on 
 it ; and then the heaps glitter so, they hurt 
 one's eyes. 
 
 Florrie. Now you're just playing, you 
 know. 
 
 L. So are you, you know. 
 
 Florrie. Yes, but you mustn't play. 
 
 L. That's very hard, Florrie ; why mustn't 
 I, if you may ? 
 
 Florrie. Oh, I may, because I'm little, 
 but you mustn't, because you're — (hesi/a/es 
 for a delicate expression of magnitude^. 
 
 L. (rudely taking the first that comes). 
 Because Fm big ? No ; that's not the way of 
 it at all, Florrie. Because you're little, you 
 should have very little play ; and because 
 I'm big I should have a great deal. 
 
 Isabel and Florrie {both). No — no — no 
 — no. That isn't it at all. (Isabel sola, quot- 
 ing Miss Ingelow. ) ' ' The lambs play always 
 — they know no better." {Putting her head 
 ■very much on one side.) Ah, now — please 
 — please — tell us true ; we want to know. 
 
 L. But why do you want me to tell you 
 true, any more than the man who wrote the 
 ^'Arabian Nights " ? 
 
XLbc IDalle^ of 2)tamonD0» 13 
 
 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 1 Things that 
 really are. 
 
 L. Whether you can see them or not ? 
 
 Isabel. Yes, if somebody else saw them. 
 
 L. But if nobody has ever seen them ? 
 
 Isabel {evading the point). Well, but, yoa 
 know, if there were a real Valley of Dia- 
 monds^ 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 upP 
 
 L. You think it should go down into a 
 valley .? No, it goes up ; this is a valleys 
 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. 
 
14 ^be iBtbice ot tbe Bust. 
 
 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 
 as 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 valley. 
 
 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 watermelons, and look ever so nice ; 
 and the people of the place make a red pot- 
 tage of them : but you must take care not to 
 eat 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 color 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 see 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 silk- 
 worms, 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 ; r.nd 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 
 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. 
 
1 6 tlbc JStbice of the Bust* 
 
 Florrie. 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 forest all the night long ; you wade 
 in fireflies, they make the fields look like a 
 lake trembling with reflection of stars ; but 
 you must take care not to touch them, for 
 they are not like Italian fireflies, 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; 
 
Zhc IDallcs ot 2)iamonD0» 17 
 
 always higher and higher, till the gold is all 
 split asunder by wedges of ice ; and gla- 
 ciers, welded, half of ice seven times frozen, 
 and half of gold seven times frozen, hang 
 down from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving 
 into deadly splinters, like the Cretan arrow- 
 heads ; 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 weig^ht of golden ashes. So the wan- 
 derers 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 val- 
 ley, sitting on his throne : and beside him 
 (but it is only a false vision), spectra of creat- 
 ures like themselves, sit on thrones, from 
 which they seem to look down on all the 
 kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
 them. And on the canopy of his throne 
 there is an inscription in fiery letters, which 
 they strive to read, but cannot ; for it is 
 written in words which are like 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/' * 
 * Dante, Inf. 7 i. 
 2 
 
i8 XTbe JBtbiC6 ot tbe Dust, 
 
 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 JMidi ? 
 
 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 Wednesday morning. 
 
 L. Of course. That is the way to see a 
 country in a Sibylline manner, by inner 
 consciousness : but you might have seen the 
 pierced rock in your drive up, or down, if 
 the clouds broke : not that there is 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 you may see, seven 
 thousand feet above the valley (as the clouds 
 ilit past behind it, or leave the sky), first 
 white, and then dark blue. Well, there's 
 just such an eyelet 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 
 
Zbc \Dallci2 ot 2)iamonD0» 19 
 
 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. We 
 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 wear in rings and necklaces 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. 
 iRace between Lily and Isabel. ) 
 
 (Re-enter Isabel with the box, very much 
 out of breath. Lily behind.) 
 
 L. Why, you never can beat Lily in a 
 race on the stairs, can you, Isabel 1 
 
 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 
 everywhere, all through ; and then, do you 
 
20 IT'oe BtbtC0 of tbe Dust 
 
 see these two white beads, w^hich shine, a& 
 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 mankind, — 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 diamonds.? but how many have- 
 been made base, 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 ta 
 fill them.? Look into the history of any 
 civilized nations ; analyze, with reference to 
 this one cause of crime and misery, the lives- 
 and thoughts of their nobles, priests, mer- 
 chants, 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, aa 
 
ilbe TDalle^ ot 2)iamonD0» 2r 
 
 it were, of there being a pretty metal, like 
 gold, to be found by dig-ging. If people 
 could not find that, would they not find 
 -something else, and quarrel for it instead ? 
 
 L. No. Wherever legislators have suc- 
 ceeded in excluding, for a time, jewels and 
 precious metals from among national pos- 
 sessions, the national spirit has remained 
 healthy. Covetousness is not natural to man 
 — generosity is ; but covetousness must be 
 excited by a special cause, as a given disease 
 by a given miasma ; and the essential nature 
 of a material for the excitement of covetous- 
 ness is, that it shall be a beautiful thing 
 which can be retained without a use. The 
 moment we can use our possessions to any 
 good purpose ourselves, the instinct of com- 
 municating that use to others rises side by 
 side with, our power. If you 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 your 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 
 
22 ^be iBtbiCB ot tbe 5)u6t 
 
 things, gold and diamonds, must have been 
 appointed to some good purpose ? 
 
 L. Quite conceivably so, my dear : as 
 also earthquakes and pestilences ; but of 
 such ultimate purposes we can have no sight. 
 The practical, immediate office of the earth- 
 quake 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 destruction of souls (in what- 
 ever sense you have been taught to under- 
 stand 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 way of them. The 
 money which the English habitually spend 
 in cutting diamonds would, in ten years, if 
 it were applied to cutting rocks instead, 
 leave no dangerous reef nor difficult harbor 
 round the whole island coast. Great Britain 
 would be a diamond worth cutting, indeed, 
 a true piece of regalia. (Leaves this io their 
 thoughts for a little while). Then, also, we 
 poor mineralogists might sometimes have 
 the chance of seeing a fine crystal of dia- 
 mond unbacked by the jeweler. 
 
 Sibyl. Would it be more beautiful uncut?' 
 
 L. No ; but of infinite interest. We 
 might even come to know something about 
 the making of diamonds. 
 
 Sibyl. I thought the chemists could make 
 them already ? 
 
^be \i)alle^ ot Diamonds. 25 
 
 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, bu. not the dia- 
 monds. Read the account given of the dia- 
 mond 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 ; but it may have been 
 charred wood ; but what one would like to 
 know is, mainly, why charcoal should make 
 itself into diamonds in India, and only into 
 black lead in Borrowdale. 
 
 Sibyl. Are they wholly the s£ime, then ? 
 
 L. There is a little iron mixed with our 
 black lead ; but nothing to hinder its crys- 
 tallization. Your pencils in fact are all 
 pointed with formless diamond, though they 
 would be H H H pencils to purpose, if it 
 crystallized. 
 
 Sibyl. But what is crystallization ? 
 
 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. 
 
24 ^be Mtbics of the Du6t. 
 
 L. But nobody knows anything- about it. 
 Sibyl. Then tell us something that nobody 
 knows. 
 
 L. Get along with you, and tell Dora to 
 make tea. 
 
 {77ie house rises ; hut of course the Lec- 
 turer wanted to he forced to tecture 
 again^ and was. ) 
 
LECTURE 2. 
 
 THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. 
 
LECTURE 11. 
 
 THE P YRA MID B UILDERS. 
 
 In the targe Schoolroom, to which everybody has been 
 summoned by ringing of the great bell. 
 
 L. So you have all actually come to hear 
 about crystallization ! I cannot conceive 
 why, unless the little ones think that the 
 discussion may involve som^ reference to 
 sugar-candy. 
 
 {^Symptoms of high displeasure among 
 the young e memberrs of council. Isa- 
 bel frowns severely at L., and shakes 
 her head violently. ) 
 
 My dear children, if you knew it, you 
 are yourselves, at this moment, as you 
 sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eye 
 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 
 crystallizing without knowing it. Did not 
 I hear a great hurrying and whispering, 
 ten minutes ago, when you were late in from 
 the playground ; and thought you would 
 not all be quietly seated by the time I was 
 
 27 
 
28 ^bc JBmc6 of tbe 2)u6t» 
 
 ready : — besides some discussion about 
 places — something- about " it's not being fair 
 that the little ones should always be near- 
 est ? " Well, you were then all being 
 crystallized. When you ran in from the 
 garden, 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, when- 
 ever they get disordered : they get into 
 order again as^oon 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 
 Ave dispute about our places ; do the atoms 
 — (and, besides, we don't like being com- 
 pared to atoms at all) — never dispute about 
 Iheirs ? " 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 me see — ** primary molecules''.'' 
 ( General dissent indicated in subdued hut 
 decisive murmurs.) No ! not even, in fa- 
 miliar Saxon, '' dust " } 
 
 {Pause, with expression on /aces of sor^ 
 rowful doubt ; Lily gives voice to the 
 general sentiment in a timid * * Please 
 don't. ') 
 
No, children, I won't call you that ; and 
 mind, as you grow up, that you do not get 
 into an idle and wicked habit of callings 
 yourselves that. You are something better 
 than dust, and have other duties to do than 
 ever dust can do ; and the bonds of affec- 
 tion 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 : " remember, it is only 
 on compulsion, and while it has no free per- 
 mission to do as it likes, that // ever gets 
 out of order; but sometimes, with some of 
 us, the compulsion has to be the other way 
 — hasn't it ? (Remonstratory whispers, ex- 
 pressive of opinion that the Lecturer is he- 
 coming 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 running 
 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 these 
 bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the 
 bottom, in utter confusion, upset out of 
 
30 Xlbc J£tblc6 ot tbc Dust. 
 
 carts at random. You would have to draw 
 a great many plans, and count all your 
 Ibricks, 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 melancholy 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 
 lap 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 honeycomb, and to thiflk that strange 
 enough, but now you would see the honey- 
 comb make itself ! — You want to ask 
 -something, Florrie, by the look of your 
 eyes. 
 
 Florrie. Are they turned into real bees, 
 Avith stings ? 
 
 L. No, Florrie ; you are only to fancy 
 ilying 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. 
 
XTbe Pi^tamlD JButlOers* 31 
 
 yet find their way in the air just where they 
 should settle, into towers and roofs, each 
 flying to his place and fastening there at the 
 right moment, so that every other one shall 
 fit to him in his turn. 
 
 Lily. But who are the fairies, then, who 
 l3uild the crystals ? 
 
 L. There is one great fairy, Lily, who 
 T3uilds much more than crystals ; but she 
 l)uilds 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 un- 
 less you like. 
 
 Isabel. Oh, please, please. 
 
 L. You are all such wise children, there's 
 no talking to you ; you won't believe any- 
 thing. 
 
 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 Cumae, 
 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 gayly for a 
 Sibyl — and said you would harness a flock 
 of cranes for us, and we might fly over to 
 Egypt if we liked, and see. 
 
32 tTbe BtbiC6 of tbe 5)ii^^> 
 
 Sibyl. Yes, and you went, and couldn't 
 find out after all ! 
 
 L. Why, you know, Egypt had been just 
 doublmg 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 another ; 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 me 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 the Nile, so it is all 
 right. 
 
 Isabel. Why didn't you take me with 
 
you ? Where rats can go, mice can. I 
 wouldn't have come back. 
 
 L. No, mousie ; 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 im- 
 agination of the heavy granite blocks and 
 the underground ways had troubled me, and 
 dreams are often shaped in a strange op- 
 position to the impressions that have caused 
 them ; and from all that we had been read- 
 ing 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.f 
 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 
 
 * Note iii. t Note ii. 
 
 I nN"IVERSITY ] 
 
34 ^be J6tbiC0 ot tbe Dust* 
 
 drew nearer, I looked by chance past it, 
 towards the sun; and saw a silver 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 I know now. 
 
 L. Yes ; it was Neith herself ; and as the 
 two great spirits came nearer to me, I saw 
 they were the Brother and Sister — the pil- 
 lared 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 
 their sense came to me ; and so I knew that 
 * Note ill. 
 
Neith had come down to see her brother's 
 work, 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 por- 
 phyry, 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 mold 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 what they may, and 
 not lie — let them make their clay four- 
 square ; and labor ; 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 thy wheel, many 
 to dishonor, and few to honor ; wilt thou 
 not let them so much as see my face ; but 
 slay them in slavery ? " 
 
36 Zbc mbics ot tbc 'BnsU 
 
 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 wher- 
 ever 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 wis- 
 dom, 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 vShall be 
 bound. They shall labor in the fire for 
 vanity." 
 
 And Neith said, looking at the sand, 
 "Brother, there is no true labor here — there 
 is only weary life and wasteful death." 
 
 And Pthah answered, "Is it not truer 
 labor, sister, than thy sculpture of dreams ? "^ 
 
 Then Neith smiled ; and stopped sud- 
 denly. 
 
 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 labor," answered Neith, 
 ''Look ! I must follow Phre beyond Atlas ; 
 shall 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 gath- 
 ered in her eye. 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 
 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 
 
38 ^be iStbics of tbe Bust* 
 
 with a sound like 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, Hke 
 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, per- 
 fect ; and purple with the light from the edge 
 of the sinking sun. 
 
 The YOUXGER Children (variously pleased). 
 I'm so glad ! How nice ! But what did 
 Pthah say ? 
 
 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 Neith's pyramid left 1 
 
 L. Yes ; but you could not think, Egypt, 
 what a strange feeling of utter loneliness 
 came over me when the presence 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 ter- 
 rible. 
 
 Egypt. I used to feel that, when I was 
 
queen : sometimes I had to carve gods • for 
 company, all over my palace. I Would faia 
 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 : 
 audits fore claws became strong arms, and 
 hands ; one grasping real iron pincers, and 
 the other a huge hammer ; and it had a hel- 
 met on its head, without any e3^elet holes, 
 that I could see. And its two hind claws 
 became strong crooked legs, with feet bent 
 inwards. And so there stood by me a dwarf, 
 in glossy black armor, ribbed and embossed 
 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 Neith's great pyramid small. I am 
 the lower Pthah: and have power over fire. 
 I can wither the strong things, and strength- 
 en 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 
 
40 V^bc ;iEtbtC6 ot tbc Bust. 
 
 pale rose-color like fire. And I saw that 
 it glowed with fire from within. And the 
 lower Pthah touched it with the hand 
 that held the pincers ; and it sank down 
 like the sand in an hour-^lass, — then drew 
 itself together, 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 to me saying, 
 ''Everything 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 bum." 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, 
 and 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 holding the little pyramid so fast 
 in my hand that it hurt me. 
 
 Egypt. Holding what in your hand ? 
 
 L. The little pyramid. 
 
 Egypt. Neith's pyramid } 
 
 L. Neith's, I believe ; though not built for 
 Asychis. I know only that it is a little rosy 
 transparent pyramid, 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 0/ rose Fluor.) 
 
 {Con/used examination by crowded audi- 
 ence, over each other' s shoulders and 
 under each other s arms. Disappoint- 
 ment begins to manifest itself .^ 
 
 Sibyl {not quite knowing why she and 
 others are disappointed^. But you 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 t 
 
 L. What finer thing could a dream be 
 about than this .? It is small, if you 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 incom- 
 prehensible. It was not, I suppose, as 
 swift, but quite as grand things are done 
 as swiftly. When Neith makes crystals of 
 snow it needs a great deal more marshaling 
 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 ? 
 
42 XTbe ismcB of tbe Duet, 
 
 L. What /mean, is of little consequence^ 
 What the Egyptians meant, who called her 
 '*Neith," — or Homer, who called her "Athe- 
 na," — or Solomon, who called her by a word 
 which the Greeks render as '^Sophia," you 
 must judge for yourselves. But her testi- 
 mony 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 habitual parts of the 
 earth, and my delights were with the sons of 
 men. " 
 
 Mary. But is not that only a personifica- 
 tion ? 
 
 L. If it be, what will you gain by unper- 
 sonifying it, or what right have you to da 
 so.f^ Cannot you accept the image given 
 you, 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 me early shall find me" ? 
 
 {TJiey are all quiet for a minute or two ; 
 questions begin to appear in their eyes.) 
 
 I cannot talk to you any more to-day. 
 Take that rose-crystal away with you, and 
 think 
 
LECTURE 3. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL LIFE. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL LIFE, 
 
 A very dull Lecture^ willfully brought upon themselves by 
 the elder children. Some of the young ones have, how- 
 ever, managed to get in by mistake. Scene, the school- 
 room, 
 
 L. So I am to stand up here merely to be 
 asked questions, to-day, Miss Mary, am I ? 
 
 Mary. Yes; and you t.mus| answer them 
 plainly ; without telling us any more stories. 
 You are quite spoiling the children : the poor 
 Jittle 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 ; l3ut 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 small- 
 est atoms which are visibly and practically 
 put together to make large crystals, may 
 
 45 
 
46 Zbc JBtbice ot tbc Dust, 
 
 better be described as *' limited in fixed direc- 
 tions " than as *' of fixed forms." But I can 
 "tell you nothing clear about ultimate atoms ; 
 you will find the idea of little bricks, or, per- 
 haps, 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 
 Icnow. 
 
 L. No, Mary, for we should not wish to 
 know anything but what is easily and as- 
 suredly knowable. There's no end to it. 
 If I could show you, or myself, a group of 
 ultimate atoms, quite clearly, in this magni- 
 fying glass, we should both be presently 
 A^exed because we could not break them in 
 two pieces, and s^e their insides. 
 
 Mary. Well, then, next, what do you mean 
 by the flying of the bricks ? V/hat is it the 
 atoms do, that is like flying ? 
 
 L. When they are dissolved, or un crystal- 
 lized, 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 solu- 
 tions, 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 only, the sub- 
 stance is said to be melted ; if they are sep- 
 
TLhc Crystal %itc. 47 
 
 arated by any other substance, as particles 
 of sugar by water, they are said to be " dis- 
 solved." Note this distinction carefully, all 
 of you. 
 
 Bora. I will be very particular. When 
 next you tell me there isn't sugar enough in 
 your tea, I will say, " It is not yet dissolved, 
 sir." 
 
 L.- 1 tell you what shall be dissolved. Miss 
 Dora ; and that's the present parliament, if 
 the members get too saucy. 
 
 (Dora folds Iter hands and casts down 
 her eyes.) 
 
 L. {proceeds in stale). Now, Miss Mary, 
 you 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 ahvays, crystallizes as 
 it cools ; the more slov/ly the more perfect- 
 ly. Water melts at v/hat we call the, freez- 
 ing, 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 crystallize, if you will 
 let it cool slowly enough, in stars, much 
 like snow. Gold needs more heat to melt 
 it, but crystallizes also exquisitely, as I will 
 presently show you. Arsenic and sulphur 
 crystallizes from their vapors. Now in any 
 
48 Zbc :etblc6 ot tbc WneU 
 
 of these cases, either of melted, dissolved, or 
 vaporous bodies, the particles are usually- 
 separated from each other, either by heat 
 or by an intermediate substance ; and in 
 crystallizing they are both brought nearer 
 to each other, and packed, so as to fit as 
 closely as possible : the essential part of 
 the business being not the bringing together, 
 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 I bring twice as much as the 
 trunk holds. Lily always gets everything in. 
 
 Lily. Ah ! but, Isey, if you only knew 
 what a time it takes ! and since youVe had 
 those great hard buttons on your frocks, I 
 can't do anything with them. Buttons 
 won't go anywhere, you know. 
 
 L. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only 
 knew what a time it takes ; and I wish any 
 of us knew what a time crystallization takes, 
 for that is consummately 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. But it takes 
 such a time ! 
 
 However, the best — out and out the best 
 — way of understanding the thing, is to crys- 
 tallize yourselves. 
 
C^bc Crystal %itc. 49 
 
 The Audience. Ourselves 1 
 
 L. Yes ; not merely as you did the other 
 day, carelessly on the schoolroom forms ; 
 but carefully and finely, out in the play- 
 ground. You can play at crystallizatioa 
 there as much as you please. 
 
 Kathleen a7td Jessie. Oh! how.'^ — how.? 
 
 L. First you must put yourselves together 
 as close as you 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 you pin 
 it in ; and then you may make a polished 
 crystal of yourselves. 
 
 Lily. Oh, we'll pin it in — we'll pin it in I 
 
 L. Then, when you 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 many places they stand from the 
 corners. 
 
 Kathleen. Yes, yes, — and then .? 
 
 L. Then you must scatter all over the 
 4 
 
50 tibe JBtbics ot tbe 'DneU 
 
 playground — 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 accurately, 
 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, ]\Iiss Katie; I can't allow any 
 running against each other. The atoms 
 never do that, v/hatever human creatures 
 do. You must all know your places, and 
 find your way to them without jostling. 
 
 Lily. But 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 out hovv^ to 
 do it ; it is only like soldiers forming square, 
 except that each must standstill in her place 
 as she reaches it, and the others come round 
 
1Z\)C Cri26tal %itc. 51 
 
 Ler ; 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 up- 
 on it : but it would be of no use, for if you 
 don't know your places, you will make a 
 iine 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 ? 
 
 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 at- 
 traction, to exist between the spots, and try 
 how, on that permitted supposition, you can 
 attract them into the figure of a Maltese 
 cross, in the middle of the paper. 
 
 Mary {having tried if). Yes ; I see that I 
 cannot : — one would need all kinds of at- 
 tractions, in different ways, at different 
 
52 Zbc jetblC6 of tbc Du6t» 
 
 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 provok- 
 ing to be asked what it is to be alive. Do 
 you think you don't know w^hether you are 
 alive or not.^* 
 
 (Isabel skips to the end of ill e room and 
 hack. ) 
 
 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 
 "mood of motion." It requires a certain 
 quantity of heat to take you to the side- 
 board ; and exactly the same quantity ta 
 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. 
 However, you know, Isabel, you might have 
 been a particle of a mineral, and yet have 
 been carried round the room, or anywhere 
 else, by chemical forces, in the liveliest way. 
 
 Isabel. Yes ; but I wasn't carried : I car- 
 ried 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. 
 
tibe Cri36tal %itc. 53 
 
 Violet {indginanf). Oh, surely — surely 
 that cannot be so. Is not all the life of the 
 soul in communion, not separation ? 
 
 L. There can be no communion where 
 there is no distinction. But we shall be in 
 an abyss of metaphysics 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 children are not 
 pleased^ and prepare to remonstrate ; but know- 
 ing by experience, that all conversations in 
 lohich the word ^^ communion" occurs, are 
 ^inintelligible, thi7ik better o/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 egg, or a young animal, 
 are properly called ''alive" with respect to 
 the force belonging to those forms, which 
 consistently develops that form, and no 
 other. But the force which crystallizes 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 see 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 elements ; and a period for its end. 
 So you may define life by its attached nega- 
 
54 ^be iBtl^ice ot tbe 5)u6t 
 
 tive, death ; and still more by its attached 
 positive, 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 crystallize 
 ourselves out of the whole playground. 
 Now, what playground have the minerals ? 
 Where are they scattered before they are 
 crystallized ; and where are the crystals 
 generally made ? 
 
 L. That sounds to me more like three 
 questions than one, Mary. If it is only 
 one, it is a wide one. 
 
 Mary. I did not say anything about the 
 width of it 
 
 L. Well, I must keep it within the best 
 compass I can. When rocks either dry from 
 a moist state, or cool from a heated state, 
 they necessarily alter in bulk ; and cracks, or 
 open spaces, form in them in all directions. 
 These cracks must be filled up with solid 
 matter, or the rock would eventually be- 
 
TLbc Crystal %itc. 55 
 
 come a ruinous heap. So, sometimes by 
 water, sometimes by vapor, sometimes no- 
 body knows how, crystallizable matter is 
 brought from somewhere, 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 crystallizing 
 substance come from ? 
 
 L. Sometimes out of the rock itself; 
 sometimes from below or above, through the 
 veins. The entire substance of the contract- 
 ing rock may be filled with liquid, pressed 
 into it so as to fill every pore ; — or with 
 mineral vapor ; — or it may be so charged at 
 one place, and empty at another. There's 
 no end to the ''may he's.'"' But all that you 
 need fancy, for our present purpose, is that 
 hollows in the rocks, like the caves in Derby- 
 shire, are traversed by liquids or vapor con- 
 taining certain elements in a more or less 
 free or separate state, which crystallize on 
 the cave walls. 
 
 Sibyl. There now ; — Mary has had all her 
 questions answered ; it's my turn to have 
 mine. 
 
 L. Ah, there's a conspiracy among you, I 
 see. I might have guessed as much. 
 
 Dora. I'm sure you ask us questions 
 
56 ITbe lBtbiC6 of tbc Bust. 
 
 enough ! How can you have the heart, 
 when you dislike so to be asked them your- 
 self? 
 
 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 1 don't want to be asked it, quite 
 dreadfully ; but you'll have your own way, 
 of course. 
 
 SicYL. We none of us understand about 
 the lower Pthah. It was not merely yester- 
 day ; but in all we have read about him in 
 Wilkinson, or in any book, we cannot un- 
 derstand what the Egyptians put their god 
 into that ugly little deformed shape for. 
 
 L. Well, Tm glad it's that sort of ques- 
 tion ; because I can answer anything I like 
 to that. 
 
 Egytt. Anything you like will do quite 
 well for us ; we shall be pleased with the 
 answer, if you are. 
 
 L. I am not so sure of that, most gracious 
 queen ; for 1 must begin by the statement 
 that queens seem 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 me 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 labor 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 practiced it. 
 Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, 
 they perceived that the special practice 
 necessary to bring any manual art to per- 
 fection strengthened the body distortedly ; 
 one energy or member gaining at the ex- 
 pense 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 rever- 
 ence and scorn in the varied types of the 
 lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah. 
 
 Sibyl. But what did you mean by making 
 him say ' ' Everything great I can make small, 
 and everything small great ''.^^ 
 
 L. I had my own separate meaning in 
 that. We have seen in modern times the 
 
58 Zbc Btbica ot tbe WweU 
 
 power of the lower Pthah developed in a 
 separate way, which no Greek nor Egyptian 
 could have conceived. It is the character 
 of pure and eyeless manual labor to con- 
 ceive everything as subjected to it ; and in 
 reality to disgrace and diminish all that is 
 so subjected, aggrandizing 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 con- 
 ducted emphasis, ''They have made man 
 greater, and the world less." His working 
 audience were mightily pleased ; they 
 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 the big- 
 gest men, who lived in the least houses. 
 
 Sibyl. 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 boaster and self-as- 
 sertor, by nature ; but it is so far true. For 
 instance, we used to have a fair in our 
 neighborhood — 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 
 
XTbc (Br^etal %itc. 59 
 
 were curious booths, carried on poles ; and 
 peep-shows ; and music, withplenty of drums 
 and cymbals ; and much barley-sugar and 
 ginger bread, and the like : and in the alleys. 
 of this fair the London populace would enjoy 
 themselves, after their fashion, very thor- 
 oughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work 
 upon it one day ; he make 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 tine, and a new style of architec- 
 ture ; 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 him- 
 self), and he got the angels down from 
 Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like 
 his gingerbread of old times ; and he sent 
 for everything else he could think of, and 
 put it in his booth. There are the casts of 
 Niobe and her children ; and the Chim- 
 panzee ; 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- 
 
6o tTbe Btbica ot tbe Bust^ 
 
 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 Counselor Pleydell to 
 sing *'Webe 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 vibra- 
 tion of the drummer's hand : and it's lovely. 
 
 Sibyl. But fancy going to a concert, not 
 to hear, but to see ! 
 
 L. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite 
 right thing, I believe, is to go there to talk. 
 I confess, however, that in most music, 
 when very well done, the doing of it is to 
 me the chiefly interesting part of the busi- 
 ness. I'm always thinking how good it 
 would be for the fat, supercilious people, 
 who care so little for their half-crown's worth, 
 io be set to try and do a half-crowns worth 
 of anything like it. 
 
Zbc Crystal %itc. 6r 
 
 Mary. But surely that Crystal Palace is a 
 great good and help to the people of Lon- 
 don ? 
 
 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 — noth- 
 ing but hammer and tongs. I saw a won- 
 derful piece of his doing in the place, only 
 the other day. Some unhappy metal-worker 
 — I am not sure if it was not a metal-work- 
 ing 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 British 
 eagle. Every feather was made separately ; 
 and every filament of every feather sepa- 
 rately, and so joined on ; and all the quills 
 modeled of the right length and right sec- 
 tion, 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 
 
62 Cbc }EtbiC5 ot tbc 5)U6L 
 
 to have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the 
 Gray 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 fiber 
 of bronze it made, was itself, and not the 
 eagle. That is the true meaning of the little 
 Pthahs having no eyes — he can see only 
 himself. 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 
 Ihey are) into little round balls ; and push- 
 ing them home with the strong wrong end 
 of it, — head downmost all the way, — -like a 
 modern political economist with his ball of 
 capital, declaring that a nation can stand on 
 its vices better than on its virtues. But 
 away with you, children, now, for I'm get- 
 ting cross. 
 
 l3oRA. I'm going downstairs ; I shall take 
 care, at any rate, that there are no little 
 Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards. 
 
LECTURE 4. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL ORDERS. 
 
 A working Lecture in the large Schoolroom ; with ex- 
 perimental Interludes. The great bell has rung un- 
 expectedly, 
 
 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 crystallize 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 i 
 that you don't want to crystallize yourselves : 
 you didn't, the day before yesterda)^, 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 when you had 
 nothing to look forward to, but the old ones. 
 
 Isabel. But then, to have to wait — wait 
 — wait ; and before we've tried it ; — and per- 
 haps it will rain to-morrow, too ! 
 
 5 6S 
 
66 XLbc JStbice of the Bust* 
 
 L. It may also rain the day after to- 
 morrow. We can make ourselves uncom- 
 fortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. 
 You may stick perhapses into your little 
 minds, like pins, till you are as uncomfort- 
 able as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with 
 their arrows, when he would not lie quiet. 
 
 Isabel. But what are we to do to-day ? 
 
 L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulli- 
 ver when he saw there was nothing better to 
 be done. And to practice patience. I can 
 tell you, children, /ha/ requires nearly as 
 much practicing as music ; and we are con- 
 tinually 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 les- 
 son. I can't play it properly. 
 
 L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, 
 Isabel ? The more need to practice. 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. 
 
 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 de- 
 pends ever is easy. People are always talk- 
 ing of perseverance, and courage, and forti- 
 
tilde ; but patience is the finest and worthiest I 
 part of fortitude, — and the rarest, too. I 
 know twenty persevering girls for one ; 
 patient one : but it is only that twenty-first 
 w"ho can do her work, out and out, or enjoy 
 it. For patience lies at the root of all pleas- 
 ures, as well as of all powers. Hope her- 
 self ceases to be happiness, when Impatience 
 companions her. 
 
 Isabel and Lily stf down on the floor a?id 
 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 
 lo-day. Suppose we use this calamitous 
 forenoon to choose the shapes we are to 
 crystallize into } we know nothing about 
 them yet. 
 
 The pictures of resignation rise from the 
 floor not in the patientest manner. Gen- 
 eral applause. ) 
 Mary (with one or two others^. The very 
 thing we wanted to ask you about ! 
 
 Lily. We looked at the books about crys- 
 tals^ but they are so dreadful. 
 
6S Zbc JBthiCB ot tbe Du6t 
 
 L. Well, Lily, we must go through a little 
 dreadfulness, that's a fact : no road to any- 
 good knowledge is wholly among the lilies 
 and the grass ; there fs rough climbing to be 
 done always. But the (l^rystal-books are a 
 little /oo dreadful, most of them, I admit ; 
 and we shall have to be content with very 
 little of their help. You know, as you can- 
 not 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 thoose some 
 that will be quite easy. You shall make 
 diamonds of yourselves — 
 
 Isabel. Oh, no, no ! we won't be dia~ 
 monds, please. 
 
 . L. Yes, you shall, Isabel ; they are very 
 pretty things, if the jewelers 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 one, which will be very 
 orderly, of course ; and Kathleen in the 
 middle of the other, for which we will hope 
 the best ; and you shall make Derbyshire 
 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 
 
tlbc Cri26tal OrDcta. 69 
 
 ^veVe the schoolroom 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 lot me have three tables 
 wheeled into the three windov/s, that we 
 may keep our specimens separate ; — we will 
 keep the three orders of crystals on separate 
 tables. 
 
 (First Interlude, 0/ pushing and pullingy 
 and spreading of baize covers. Violet, 
 7iot particularly minding what she is 
 about, gets herself jaiiimed into a cor- 
 ner, and bid to stand out of the way ; 
 on wJiich site devotes herself to medi- 
 tation. ) 
 Violet (after interval of meditation^. How 
 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 lilies 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. 
 
70 Zbc BtbiC6 of tbe 2)u6t. 
 
 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 thaa 
 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 /o Mary.) He will get 
 off into political economy before we know 
 where we are. {Aloud.) But the crystals, 
 are divided into three, then ? 
 
 L. No ; but there are three general no- 
 tions by which we may best get hold of 
 them, Then between these notions there 
 are other notions. 
 
 Lily {alarmed). A great many 1 And 
 shall we have to learn them all .? 
 
 L. More than a great many — a quite in- 
 finite 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 necklace this morn- 
 ing ? 
 
 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 empties her pocket o?i the 
 -floor. TJie beads disperse. The School 
 disperses also. Second Interlude — 
 hunting piece. ) 
 
 L. (after ivaiting patiently for a quarter of 
 an hour, to Isabel, who comes up from under 
 the table with her hair all about her ears and 
 the last findable beads in her hand). Mice 
 are useful little things sometimes. Now, • 
 mousie, I want all those beads crystallized. 
 How many ways are there of putting them 
 in order.? 
 
 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 ' ' iV^^^i/e-crystals. " 
 What would be the next way } 
 
 Isabel. I suppose, as we are to get to- 
 gether 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 careful endeavor ). I can't 
 get them closer. 
 
72 ^be 'BtB^s'ot tbe 2)ust. 
 
 L. That will do. Now you may see, be- 
 forehand, 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 larg-er, out of three rods 
 of three. Then the next square may be a 
 size larg-cr. IIov/ many rods, Lily ? 
 
 Lily. Four rods of four beads* each, I 
 suppose. 
 
 L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and 
 so on. But now, look here ; make another 
 square of four beads again. You see they 
 leave a little opening- in the center. 
 
 Isabel. {^piLshijig two opposite ones closer \ 
 together). Now they don't. 
 
 L. No ; but now it isn't a square ; and 
 by pushing the two together you have I 
 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 i 
 touched two of the others, but now each of j 
 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, 
 bowevcr few or many you may be, you 
 may soon learn how to crystallize quickly into 
 these tv/o figures, which are the foundation 
 of form in the commonest, and therefore 
 actually the most important 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 1 
 
 L. Yes ; but beaten by no man's ham- 
 mer, 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 
 y^ou know it is gold. It is not prettier, in 
 reality, than a bit of brass : for it is Transyl- 
 vanian 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 does it, it's 
 
74 ^bc iBtbics of tbc 2)U5t» 
 
 very provoking of him, for no gold is woven 
 so fine anywhere else. 
 
 Mary {who has bee?i looking through her 
 magnifying glass). But this is not woven. 
 This is all made of little triangles. 
 
 L. Say ' ' patched, " then, if you must be 
 so particular. 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 built our 
 great triangle of the beads, what word will 
 you take for the manufacture t 
 
 INI AY. 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 woodlands, but the 
 ruined rocks, will help you to remember the 
 second kind of crystals, Z^^-cr^^stals, or 
 Foliated crystals ; though I show you the 
 form in gold first only to make a strong im- 
 pression on you, for gold is not generally, 
 or characteristically, crystallized in leaves ; 
 the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, 
 i\Iica ; which 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 everywhere nearly, in hill coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Kathleen. If we break it well ! May we 
 break W. 
 
 L. To powder, if you like. 
 
Zbc Crystal Oxbcte. 75 
 
 {Surrenders plate of brown mica to public 
 investigation. Third Interlude. It sustaifis 
 severely philosophical treatment at all hands.y 
 
 Florrie {to whom the last fragments have 
 descended). Always leaves, and leaves, and 
 nothing- but leaves, or white dust ? 
 
 L. That dust itself is nothing but finer 
 leaves. 
 
 {Shows them to Florrie through magnify- 
 ing glass. ) 
 
 Isabel {peeping over Florrie's shoulder). 
 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 (impatient). 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 1 
 
 L. No ; and therefore, as I told you, it is 
 
76 ^bc JBtbics ot tbc Dust. 
 
 not a characteristic speciman of a foliated 
 crystallization. The latter triangles are por- 
 tions of solid crystals, and so they are in 
 this, which looks like a black mica ; but you 
 see it is made up of triangles like the gold, 
 and stands, almost accurately, as an inter- 
 mediate link, in crystals, between mica and 
 ^old. Yet this is the commonest, as gold 
 the rarest, of metals. 
 
 jNIary. Is it iron ? I never saw iron so 
 bright. 
 
 L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallized : 
 from its resemblance to mica, it is often 
 called micaceous iron. 
 
 Kathleen. ]\Iay we break this, too ? 
 
 L. No, fori could not easily get such an- 
 other 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 ! {jumps 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 they are none the worse for being on 
 
 stalks instead of in stones ? 
 
 Florrie. Yes, but then there are so many 
 of them, one never looks, I suppose. 
 
 L. Now you have it, Florrie. 
 
 Violet {sighi7ig). 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 samie law holds in our neglect of 
 multiplied pain, as in our neglect of multi- 
 plied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight 
 of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown 
 
78 Ube JEtbice of tbe Dust* 
 
 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 Vallombrosa ; 
 — and then go out to play croquet, as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
 i\lAY. 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, INIay ; 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 
 ^ot 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- 
 
Zbc Crystal OrDcrs. 79 
 
 mica, which is another like it, made chiefly 
 of copper ; and this foHated iron is called 
 '' micaceous iron/' You have then these 
 two great orders, Needle-crystals, made 
 (probably) of grains in rows ; and Leaf- 
 crystals, made (probably) of needles inter- 
 woven ; now, 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 crystallized, puts itself into such masses, 
 as if to show us how others are made. Here 
 is a brown six-sided crystal, quite as beauti- 
 fully chiseled at the sides as any castle 
 tower ; but you see it is entirely built of 
 folia of mica, one laid above another, which 
 break away the moment I touch the edge 
 with my knife. Now, here is another hex- 
 agonal tower, of just the same size and 
 color, which I want you to compare with 
 the mica carefully ; but as I cannot wait for 
 you to do it just now, I must tell you quick- 
 ly what main differences to look for. First, 
 you will feel it far heavier than the mica. 
 Then, though its surface looks quite mica- 
 ceous 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 
 
8o XTbc jEibiCB ot Voc 5)U6t 
 
 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 does not like to he 
 beaten — 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 
 crystallized, 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 ohe.'^ 
 
 L. Egypt can, ifyouaskher; she has a beau- 
 tiful one in the clasp of her favorite bracelet. 
 
 Kathleen. Why, that's a ruby ! 
 
 L. Well, so is that thing you've been 
 scratching at. 
 
 Kathleen. My goodness ! 
 
 {Takes up the sto7ie 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^ 
 
c:be Crystal ©rDer6» 8i 
 
 my '' too-badness/' But you may as well 
 pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it ; 
 and look carefully at the 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 con- 
 struction ; but you see by these lines, what 
 fine construction there ts, even in this hard- 
 est of stones (after the diamond), which 
 usually appears as a massive lump or knot. 
 There is therefore no real mineralogical dis- 
 tinction between needle crystals, and knotted 
 crystals, but practically, crystallized 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 fibers), they make the 
 stones or rocks formed out of then " Jzbrous ;" 
 when they are in folia, they make them 
 "•foliated ;'' when they are in knots (or 
 grains), " grafiular.'' 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 fibers composing them 
 ** threads " or '' needles." Here is amian- 
 thus, for instance, which is quite as fine and 
 soft as any cotton thread you ever sewed 
 with ; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with 
 6 
 
S2 XTbe JEtblC6 of tbc Bust 
 
 sharper points and brighter luster than your 
 finest needles have ; and fastened in 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 ^rand one is 
 *•' Acicular " crystal, but Sibyl will tell you it is 
 all the same, only less easily understood ; and 
 therefore 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 crys- 
 tals.* It is more interesting to . me, for 
 instance, to try and find out why the red 
 oxide of copper, usually crystallizing in 
 cubes or octahedrons, makes itself exquisite- 
 
 * Note iv. 
 
Zbc Crystal Qx^cxe. S^ 
 
 ly, out of its cubes, into this red silk in one 
 particular Cornish mine, than what are the 
 absolutely necessary angles of the octahe- 
 dron, which is its common form. At all 
 events, that mathematical part of crystal- 
 lography is quite beyond girls' strength ; but 
 these questions of the various tempers and 
 manners of crystals are not only compre- 
 hensible by you, but full of the most curious 
 teaching for you. For in the fulfillment, to 
 the best of their power, of their adopted 
 form under given circumstances there are 
 conditions entirely resembling those of hu- 
 man 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 min- 
 erals. 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 without being forced, one does not 
 know how. And so I hope you will get 
 through your wet day patiently. 
 
LECTURE 5. 
 
 CRYSTAL VIRTUES. 
 
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 {very 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 ! Plorrie ashamed of herself t 
 
 (Florrie hides behind the curlain. ) 
 
 L. And Isabel .? 
 
 (Isabel hides under ihe table.) 
 
 L. And May } 
 
 (May runs into the corner behind the 
 piano. ) 
 
 L. And Lucilla.? 
 
 (Lucilla hides her face in her hands. ) 
 
 87 
 
SS Zbc mhice ot tbe Dust, 
 
 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 (coyning out of her 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 (j'rom behind her curtaiii). As 
 naughty as me? 
 
 Isabel {peeping out from under the table- 
 cloth). Or me ? 
 
 L. Well, I don't know. They never for- 
 get 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 radi- 
 ant, all in a minute, on that account. 
 
 Dora. Oh ! but it's so much more com- 
 fortable. 
 
 {Everybody seems to recover their spirits. 
 Eclipse of Florrie and Isabel terminates. ) 
 
 L. What kindly creatures girls are, after 
 all, to their neighbors' failings ! I think you 
 may be ashamed of yourselves indeed, now, 
 children I I can tell you, you shall hear of 
 the highest crystalline merits that I can 
 think of, to-day : and I wish there were 
 more of them ; but crystals have a limited, 
 though a stern, code of morals ; and their 
 essential virtues are but two ; — the first is 
 
Cri^stal Vittnce. 89 
 
 to be pure, and the second to be well 
 shaped- ■ 
 
 Mary. Pure ! Does that mean clear — 
 transparent ? 
 
 L. No ; unless in the case of a transpar- 
 ent substance. You cannot have a trans- 
 parent crystal of gold ; but you may have 
 a perfectly pure one. 
 
 Isabel. But you said 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 re- 
 jecting 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 quiet yellow, if you hold 
 it up to the light, and milky blue on the sur- 
 face. Here is another, broken into a thou- 
 sand separate facets and out of all 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 ? 
 
90 vTbe }£tbiC6 ot tbe Du^L 
 
 / L. I think so. He would find many more 
 /laws curiously exemplified in the irregularly 
 .'ground 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 
 I 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 muck 
 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 w^ash your hands w^ithout 
 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. 
 
 {Audience doubtful and uncomfortable^ 
 LuciLLA at last takes courage,) 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh 1 but surely, sir, we cannot 
 make our hearts clean } 
 
 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 } 
 
Cri26tal mttnce. 91 
 
 L. Wait a little, Lucilla ; that is difficult 
 ground you are getting- upon and we must, 
 keep to our crystals, till at least we under- 
 stand what /het'r good and evil consist in ; 
 they may help us afterwards to some use- 
 ful hints about our own. I said that their 
 goodness consisted chiefly in purity of sub- 
 stance, and perfectness of form : but those 
 are rather the effects of their goodness, than 
 the goodness itself. The inherent virtues of 
 the crystals, resulting in these outer condi- 
 tions, might really seem to be best described. 
 in the words we should use respecting liv- 
 ing creatures — ' ' force of heart '" and ' ' steadi- 
 ness of purpose." There seem to be ia 
 some crystals, from the beginning, an un- 
 conquerable 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 un- 
 sullied, and every atom of it bright with 
 coherent energy. Then the second condi- 
 tion is, that from the beginning of its whole 
 structure, a fine crystal seems to have deter- 
 mined 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, com- 
 posed of other minor pyramids. But there. 
 
92 Zbc l£mc6 ot tbe Dust. 
 
 is not a flaw in its contour throughout ; not 
 one of its myriads of component sides but is 
 as bright as a jeweler's faceted work (and 
 far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal 
 1 points are as sharp as javelins ; their edges 
 1 will cut glass with a touch. " Anything more 
 'resolute, consummate, determinate in form, 
 cannot be conceived. Here, on the other 
 hand, is a crystal of the same substance, ' 
 a perfectly simple type of form — a plain si 
 sided prism ; but from its base to its poin 
 — and it is nine inches long, — it has neve 
 for one instant made up its mind what thick 
 ness it will have. It seems to have begui 
 by making itself as thick as it thought pos 
 sible with the quantity of material at com 
 mand. Still not being as thick as it wouk' 
 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 first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, 
 jagged on the edge, distorted in the spine, 
 it exhibits a quite human image of decrepi- 
 tude and dishonor ; but the worst of all the 
 signs of its decay and helplessness, is that 
 half-way up, a parasite crystal, smaller, 
 hut 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 downwards, contrary to the direction of 
 the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the 
 
Crystal \Dfrtue6. 93 
 
 least difference in purity of substance be- j 
 tween the first most noble stone, and this i 
 ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity off' 
 the last is in its will, or want of will. 
 
 Mary. Oh, if we could but understand the 
 the meaning of it all ! 
 
 L. We can understand all that is good for 1 
 ns. It is just as true for us, as for the crys- I 
 il, that the nobleness of life depends on its \ 
 onsistency, — clearness of purpose, — quiet 1 
 :nd ceaseless energy. All doubt, and re- j 
 penting, and botching, and re-touching, and 
 wondering what will it be best to do next, j 
 are vice, as well as misery. 
 
 Mary {much wondering). But must not 
 one repent when one does wrong, and hesi- 
 tate when one can't see one's way .? 1 
 
 L. You have no business at all to da 
 wrong ; nor to get into any way that you 
 cannot see. Your intelligence should al- 
 ways be far in advance of your act. When- 
 ever you do not know what you are about, 
 you are sure to be doing wrong. 
 
 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 do very 
 wrong if they don't know, can they ? I 
 mean, they can't be very naughty. They 
 
^4 ^t)c ;iEtbic6 ot tbe WneU 
 
 can be wrong, like Kathleen or me, when 
 Ave make mistakes ; but not wrong 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 few people really mean to do 
 wrong, — in a deep sense, none. They only 
 don't know what they are about. Cain did 
 Tiot mean to do wrong when he killed Abel. 
 (Isabel draws a deep breath, and opens 
 her eyes ve?y wide. ) 
 
 L. No, Isabel ; and there are countless 
 Cains among us now, who kill their brothers 
 by the score a day, not only for less provo- 
 cation than Cain had, but for no provoca- 
 tion, — and merely for what they can make 
 •of their bones, — yet do not think they are 
 doing wrong in the least. Then sometimes 
 you have the business reversed, as over in 
 America these last years, where you have 
 seen Abel resolutely killing Cain, and not 
 thinking he is doing wrong. The great diffi- 
 culty is always to open people s eyes : to 
 touch their feelings, and break their hearts, 
 is easy ; the difficult thing is to break their 
 heads. What does it matter, as long as they 
 remain stupid, whether you change their 
 feelings or not? You cannot be always at 
 their elbow to tell them what is right : and 
 they may just do as wrong as before, or 
 
Crystal lD(rtue6* 95 
 
 i^^orse ; and their best intentions merely 
 make the road smooth for them, — you know 
 where, children. For it is not the place 
 itself that is paved with them, as people say 
 .so often. You can't pave the bottomless 
 pit ; but you may the road to it; 
 
 May. Well, but if people do as well as 
 they can see how, surely that is the right 
 for them, isn't it ? 
 
 L. No, May, not a bit of it ; right is right, 
 -and wrong is wrong. It is only the fool 
 who docs Vv^rong, and says he " did it for the 
 best." And if there's one sort of person in 
 the world that the Bible speaks harder of 
 than another, it is fools. Their particular 
 and chief way of saying ''There is no God'' 
 is this, of declaring that whatever their 
 "public opinion " maybe, is right : and that 
 God s opinion is of no consequence. 
 
 May. But surely nobody can always 
 know what is right .^ 
 
 L. Yes, you always can, for to-day ; and 
 if you do what you see of it to-day, you will 
 .see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. 
 Here for instance, you children are at school, 
 and have to learn French, and arithmetic, 
 and music, and several other such things. 
 That is your " right " for the present; the 
 "right " for us, your teachers, is to see that 
 you learn as much as you can without spoil- 
 ing your dinner, your sleep, or your play ; 
 and that what you do learn, you learn well. \ 
 You all know when you learn with a will, ) 
 
 ( UNIVERSITY 1 
 
\ 
 
 96 ^be JEtblca of tbe Du6t» 
 
 and when you dawdle. There's no doubt 
 of conscience about that, I suppose ? 
 
 Violet. No ; but if one wants to read an 
 amusing book, instead of learning one's 
 lesson ? 
 
 L. You don't call that a "question,''' 
 seriously, Violet ? You are then merely 
 deciding whether you will resolutely da 
 wrong or not. 
 
 Mary. But in after life, how many fearful 
 difficulties may arise, however one tries to 
 know or to do what is right ! 
 
 L. Y'ou are much too sensible a girl, 
 Mary, to have felt that, whatever you may 
 have seen. A great many of young ladies' 
 difficulties arise from their falling in love 
 with a wrong person ; but they have no 
 business to let themselves fall in love, till 
 they know he is the right one. 
 
 Dora. How many thousands ought he 
 to have a year ? 
 
 L. {disdaining reply). There are, of 
 course, certain crises of fortune when one has 
 to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly 
 what one is about. There is never any real 
 doubt about the path, but you may have to 
 walk very slowly. 
 
 Mary. And if one is forced to do a wrong 
 thing by some one who has authority over 
 you ? 
 
 L. My dear, no one can be forced to do 
 a wrong thing, for the guilt is in the will : 
 but you may any day be forced to do a 
 
 I 
 
Crystal Dirtues. 97 
 
 fatal thing, as you might be forced to take 
 poison ; the remarkable law of nature in such 
 cases being, that it is always unfortimate 
 you who are poisoned, and not the person 
 who gives you the dose. It is a very strange 
 law, but it IS a law. Nature merely sees to 
 the carrying out of the normal operation of 
 arsenic. She never troubles herselt to ask 
 who gave it you. So also you may be 
 starved to death, morally as well as phys- 
 ically, by other people's faults. You are, 
 on the whole, very good children sitting 
 here to-day ; do you think that your good- 
 ness comes all by your own contriving.? or 
 that you are gentle and kind because your 
 dispositions are naturally more angelic than 
 those of the poor girls who are playing, 
 with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the 
 alleys of our great towns ; and who will 
 one day fill their prisons, — or, better, their 
 graves .f* Heaven only knows where they, 
 and we who have cast them there, shall 
 stand at last. But the main judgment ques- 
 tion will be, I suppose, for all of us, ''Did 
 you keep a good heart through it } " What 
 you were, others may answer for ; — what 
 you tried to be, you must answer for your- 
 self. Was the heart pure and true — tell us 
 that } 
 
 And so we come back to your sorrowful 
 question, Lucilla, which I put aside a little 
 ago. You would be afraid to answer that 
 your heart was pure and true, would not you ? 
 
98 Zbc iBtbice ot tbe Bust. 
 
 LuciLLA. Yes, indeed, sir. 
 
 L. Because you have been taught that it 
 is all evil — "only evil continually/' Some- 
 how, often as people say that, they never 
 seem, to me, to believe it. Do you really 
 believe it ? 
 
 LuciLLA. Yes, sir ; I hope so. 
 
 L. That you have an entirely bad heart ? 
 
 LuciLLA {a Utile uncomfortable at the sub- 
 stitution of the monosyllable for the dissyllable, 
 nevertheless persisting i7i her orthodoxy). 
 Yes, sir. 
 
 L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired ; I 
 never like you to stay when you are tired ; 
 but, you know, you must not play with the 
 kitten while we're talking. 
 
 Florrie. Oh ! but I'm not tired; and I'm 
 only nursing her. She'll be asleep in my 
 lap, directly. 
 
 L. Stop ! that puts me in mind of some- 
 thing I had to show you, about minerals 
 that are like hair. I want a hair out of 
 Tittle's tail. 
 
 Florrie {quite rude, in her surprise, even 
 to the point of repeating expressions). Out 
 of Tittle's tail ! 
 
 L. Yes : a brown one : Lucilla, you can 
 get at the tip of it nicely, under Florrie's arm; 
 just pull one out for me. 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh ! but, sir, it will hurt her so 1 
 
 L. Never mind ; she can't scratch you 
 while Florrie is holding her. Now that I 
 think of it, you had better pull out two. 
 
Crystal VittncB* 99 
 
 LuciLLA. But then she may scratch 
 Florrie ! and it will hurt her so, sir ! if you 
 only want brown hairs, wouldn't two of 
 mine do ? 
 
 L. Would you really rather pull out your 
 own than Tittle's ? 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh, of course, if mine will do. 
 
 L. But that's very wicked, Lucilla ! 
 
 LuciLLA. Wicked, sir.?* 
 
 L. Yes ; if your heart was not so bad, you 
 would much rather pull all the cat's hairs 
 out than one of your own. 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh ! but, sir, I didn't mean bad 
 like that. 
 
 L. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, 
 you would like to tie a kettle to Tittle's tail, 
 and hunt her round the playground. 
 
 LuciLLA. Indeed, I should not, sir. 
 
 L. That's not true, Lucilla ; you know it 
 cannot be. 
 
 LuciLLA. Sir ? 
 
 L. Certainly it is not ;^-how can you pos- 
 sibly speak any truth out of such a heart as 
 you have ? It is wholly deceitful. 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh ! no, no ; I don't mean that 
 way ; I don't mean that it makes me tell lies, 
 quite out. 
 
 L. Only that it tells lies within you ? 
 
 LuciLLA. Yes. 
 
 L. Then, outside of it, you know what is 
 true, and say so ; and I may trust the out- 
 side of your heart ; but within, it is all foul 
 and false. Is that the way ? 
 
100 ^bc &biCB ot tbc Bust. 
 
 LuciLLA. I suppose so : I don't under- 
 stand it quite. 
 
 L. There is no occasion for understandings 
 it ; but do you feel it ? Are you sure that 
 your heart is deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately wicked? 
 
 LuciLLA ( much relieved by fifiding herself 
 among phrases with which she is acquainted). 
 Yes, sir. I'm sure of that. 
 
 L. {pensively). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla.. 
 
 LuciLLA. So am I, indeed. 
 
 L.. What are you sorry with, Lucilla .? 
 
 LuciLLA. Sorry with, sir } 
 
 L. Yes ; I mean, where do you feel sorry, 
 in your feet 1 
 
 LuciLLA {laughing a little). No, sir, of 
 course. 
 
 L. In your shoulders, then } 
 
 LuciLLA. No, sir. 
 
 L. You are sure of that } Because, I 
 fear, sorrow in the shoulders would not be 
 worth much. 
 
 LuciLLA. I suppose I feel it in my heart, 
 if I really am sorry. 
 
 L. If you really are ! Do you mean to 
 say that you are sure you ar« utterly wicked, 
 and yet do not care } 
 
 LuciLLA. No, indeed ; I have cried about 
 it often. 
 
 L. Well, then, you are sorry in your 
 heart .'* 
 
 LuciLLA. Yes, when the sorrow is worth 
 anything. 
 
Cri26tal \Dtrtue0* loi 
 
 L. Even if it be not, it cannot be any- 
 where else but there. It is not the crystal- 
 line lens of your eyes which is sorry, when 
 you cry ? 
 
 LuciLLA. No, sir, of course. 
 
 L. Then, have you two hearts ; one of 
 which is wicked, and the other grieved ? or 
 is one side of it sorry for the other side.? 
 
 LuciLLA {weary of cross-examination^ and 
 a little vexed). Indeed, sir, you know I can't 
 understand it ; but you know how it is writ- 
 ten — " another law in my members, war- 
 ring against the law of my mind." 
 
 L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; 
 but I do not see that it will help us to know 
 that, if we neither understand what is writ- 
 ten, nor feel it. And you will not get nearer 
 to the meaning of one verse, if, as soon as 
 you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, 
 introducing three new words — "law," 
 *' members," and ** mind" ; not one of which 
 you at present know the meaning of; and 
 respecting which, you probably never will 
 be much wiser ; since men like Montesquieu 
 and Locke have spent great part of their 
 lives in endeavoring to explain two of them. 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh ! please, sir, ask somebody 
 else. 
 
 L. If I thought any one else could answer 
 better than you, Lucilla, I would : but sup- 
 pose I try, instead, myself, to explain your 
 feelings to you ? 
 
 LuciLLA. Oh, yes ; please do. 
 
102 Zhc ;i£tbiC6 ot tbe Dust, 
 
 L. Mind, I say your ''feelings," not your 
 *' belief." For I cannot undertake to ex- 
 plain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try 
 a little first, to explain the belief also, be- 
 cause I want to draw it to some issue. As 
 far as I understand what you say, or any 
 one else, taught as you have been taught, 
 says, on this matter, — you think that there 
 is an external goodness, a whited-sepulcher 
 kind of goodness, which appears beautiful 
 outwardly, but is within full of unclean- 
 ness : a deep secret guilt, of which we our- 
 selves are not sensible ; and which can only 
 be seen by the Maker of us all. {Approving- 
 murmurs /rom audtmce.) 
 
 L. Is it not so with the body as well as 
 the soul ? 
 
 (Looked notes of interrogation.') 
 
 L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful 
 thing .? 
 
 (Grave faces^ signify i^ig " Certainly not, "" 
 and ' ' What next P '') 
 
 L. And if you all could see in each other 
 with clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath 
 those fair faces of yours, you would not like 
 it.? 
 
 (Murmured No's. ) 
 
 L. Nor would it be good for you } 
 (Silence. ) 
 
 L. The probability being that what God 
 does not allow you to see. He does not wish 
 you to see ; nor even to think of? 
 (Silence prolonged. ) 
 
Cri26tal Vixtvice. 103 
 
 L. It would not at all be good for you, 
 for instance, whenever you were washing 
 your faces, and braiding your hair, to be 
 thinking of the shapes of the jawbones, and 
 of the cartilage of the nose, and of the 
 jagged sutures of the scalp ? 
 
 {Resolutely whispered Nos. ) 
 
 L. Still less to see through a clear glass 
 the daily processes of nourishment and 
 decay ? 
 
 {No's.) 
 
 L. Still less if instead of merely inferior 
 and preparatory conditions of structure, as 
 in the skeleton, — or inferior offices of struc- 
 ture, as in operations of life and death, — 
 there were actual disease in the body ; ghast- 
 ly and dreadful. You would try to cure it ; 
 but having taken such measures as were 
 necessary, you would not think the cure 
 likely to be promoted by perpetually watch- 
 ing the wounds, or thinking of them. On the 
 contrary, you would be thankful for every 
 moment of forgetfulness ; as, in daily health, 
 you must be thankful that your Maker has 
 veiled whatever is fearful in your frame under 
 a sweet and manifest beauty ; and has made 
 it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice 
 in that, both in yourself and in others : — not 
 indeed concealing, or refusing to believe 
 in sickness, if it come ; but never dwelling 
 on it. 
 
 Now, your wisdom and duty touching 
 soul-sickness are just the same. Ascertain 
 
104 ^t)e iBtbics of tbe Bust. 
 
 clearly what is wrong with you ; and so far 
 as you know any means of mending it, 
 take those means, and have done ; when you 
 are examining yourself, never call yourself 
 merely a ' ' sinner, '' that is very cheap abuse ; 
 and utterly useless. You may even get to 
 like it, and be proud of it. But call yourself 
 a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a glutton, or an 
 evil-eyed, jealous wretch, if you indeed find 
 yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take 
 steady means to check yourself in whatever 
 fault you have ascertained, and justly ac- 
 cused yourself of. And as soon as you are 
 in active way of mending, you will be no 
 more inclined to moan over an undefined 
 corruption. For the rest, you will find it 
 less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them 
 by gaining virtues. Do not think of your 
 faults ; still less of others' faults : in every 
 person who comes near 3^ou, look for what 
 is good and strong : honor that ; rejoice in 
 it; and, as you can, try to imitate it; and 
 your faults will drop off like dead leaves, 
 when their time comes. If, on looking back, 
 your whole life should seem rugged as a 
 palm-tree stem ; still, never mind, so long as 
 it had been growing ; and has its grand green 
 shade of leaves, and weight of honeyed fruit 
 at top. And even if you cannot find much 
 good in yourself at last, think that it does 
 not much matter to the universe either 
 what you were, or are ; think how many 
 people are noble, if you cannot be ; and re- 
 
Crystal Dirtues* 105 
 
 joice in ilieir nobleness. An immense quan- 
 tity of modern confession of sin, even when 
 honest, is merely a sickly egotism ; which 
 will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose 
 the centralization of its interest in itself 
 
 Mary. But then, if we ought to forget our- 
 selves so much, how did the old Greek 
 proverb "Know thyself" come to be so 
 highly estemed } 
 
 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 i7iio 
 yourself.? Never. You can know what you 
 ^re, only by looking out of yourself. Meas- 
 ure your own powers with those of others ; \ 
 compare your own interests with those of 
 •others ; try to understand what you appear I 
 to them, as well as what they appear to ' 
 you ; and judge of yourselves, in all things, 
 relatively and subordinately ; not positive- 
 ly : 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 write 
 poetry. Dwell on your own feelings ; and 
 doings: — and you will soon think your- 
 selves 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 
 
io6 ^be lBmc6 of tbe S)U6t 
 
 seem a great misfortune ; — you meditate 
 over its effects on you personally ; and begin 
 to think that it is a chastisement, or a warn- 
 ing, or a this or that or the other of profound 
 significance ; ^nd that all the angels in 
 heaven have left their business for a little 
 while, that they may watch its effects on 
 your mind But give up this egotistic in-^ 
 dulgence of your fancy ; examine a little 
 what misfortunes, greater a thousand fold, 
 are happening, every second, to twenty 
 times worthier persons : and your self- con- 
 sciousness will change into pity and humil- 
 ity ; and you will know yourself, so far as 
 to understand that *' there hath nothings 
 taken thee but what is common to man." 
 
 Now, Lucilla, these are the practical con- 
 clusions 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 ojj^en sup- 
 posed to be by careless readers/^But the 
 way in which common people Wad 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: 
 
Crisetal IDirtues, 107 
 
 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 t.he word, 
 keep it." '' Delight thyself m the Lord, and 
 He shall give thee the desires of thine 
 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 ascertain 
 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. / 
 
 I*' Keep thy heart with all diligencgs4"or out 
 of it are the issues of life. " "*=*rsf 
 
 LuciLLA. And yet, how inconsistent the 
 texts seem ! 
 
 L. Nonsense, Lucilla ! do you think the 
 
io8 XTbe JEtbics ot tbe S)U6t 
 
 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. Tm 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 are 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 of view, 
 it might appear a very black hole 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 iov you, remem- 
 ber, is not " dark or light ? " but " tidy or 
 untidy ? " Look well to your sweeping and 
 garnishing ; and be sure it is only the ban- 
 ished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder 
 ones at his back, who will still whisper to 
 you that it is all black. 
 
LECTURE 6, 
 
 CRYSTAL QUARRELS. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 CR YSTALQ UA RREL S. 
 
 Full conclave^ in Schoolroom. There has been a game of 
 crystallizatio7t in the Tnorning, of which various ac- 
 count has to be rendered. In particular^ everybody has 
 to explain why they were always where they were not 
 intended to be. 
 
 L. {Jiaving received and considered the 
 reported.^ 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 
 difficult : — 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 
 Leuthen, and learn Friedrich's " oblique 
 order." You will ''get it done for once, I i 
 think, provided you can march as a pair of 
 compasses would." But remember, when 
 you can construct the most difficult single 
 figures, you have only learned half the game 
 
112 ^be ;etbic6 ot tbe Duet. ! 
 
 — nothing so much as the half, indeed, as- j 
 the crystals themselves play it. 
 
 Mary. Indeed ; what else is there ? 
 
 L. It is seldom that any mineral crystal- 
 lizes alone. Usually two or three, under 
 quite different crystalline laws, form to- 
 gether. They do this absolutely 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 them- 
 selves, 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 l3uilds till each 
 crystal has fitted itself perfectly and grace- 
 fully to its differently-natured neighbor. 
 So that, in order to practice this, in even the 
 simplest terms, you must divide into two 
 parties, wearing different colors ; 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 we may perhaps manage 
 it; but I cannot at all understand how the 
 crystals do. It seems to imply so much 
 preconcerting of plan, and so much giving 
 way to each other, as if they really were 
 living. 
 
Cri^Btal (auarrel6» 113 
 
 L. Yes, it implies both the concurrence- 
 and compromise, regulating all willfulness, 
 of design : and, more curious still, the crys- 
 tals do not always give way to each other. 
 They show exactly the same varieties of 
 temper that human creatures might. Some- 
 times they yield the required place with, 
 perfect grace and courtesy ; forming fan- 
 tastic, but exquisitely finished groups : and 
 sometimes they will not yield at all ; but 
 fight furiously for their places, losing all 
 shape and honor, and even their own like- 
 ness, 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 
 humors 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 t 
 
 L. Everything has its own wonders ; but, 
 given the nature of the plant, it is easier to- 
 understand what a flower will do, and why 
 it does it, than, given anything we as yet 
 know of stone-nature, to understand what a 
 crystal will do, and why it does it. You at 
 
114 '^l^c ;EtbiC5 ot tbe Dust^ 
 
 ■once admit a kind of volition and choice, in 
 the flower ; but we are not accustomed to 
 attribute anything 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 min- 
 eral, than between any two specimens of the 
 same flower : and the friendships and wars 
 of crystals depend more definitely and curi- 
 ously on their varieties of disposition, than 
 any associations of flowers. Here, for in- 
 stance, 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 crystallize comfortably in ; 
 and the garnet lives happily in its little 
 white houpse ; fitted to it, like a pholas in 
 its cell But here are wicked garnets living 
 ^vith wicked mica. See what ruin they 
 make of each other ! You cannot tell which 
 is Avhich ; the garnets look like dull red stains 
 on the crumbling stones. By the way, I 
 never could understand, if St. Gothard is a 
 Teal 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 
 are paved with them. 
 
 May. Paved wnth garnets ? 
 
 L. With mica-slate and garnets ; I broke 
 this bit out of a paving stone. Now garnets 
 
Crystal Quarrels. 115 
 
 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 how- 
 ever opposite their habits may be ; while 
 wicked crystals quarrel with one another, 
 though they may be exactly alike in habits, 
 and see each other continually. And of 
 course the wicked crystals quarrel with the 
 good ones. 
 
 Isabel. Then do the good ones get an- 
 gry ? 
 
 I L. No, never : they attend to their own 
 work and life ; and live it as well 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 neighborhood, 
 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 I 
 layer of crystal over the clay ; conquered I 
 it, — imprisoned it, — and lived on. Then, / 
 when he was a little older, came 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 
 
ii6 XTbe BtbtC6 ot tbe Du6t* 
 
 ' 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 en-^ 
 dure 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 see 
 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 dishonor. But look, 
 here has been quite a different kind of strug- 
 gle : 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. 
 
 Lily. Oh, but this is much more beautiful ! 
 
 L. Yes, for both the elements have true 
 virtue in them ; it is a pity they are at war^ 
 but they war grandly. 
 
Cri26tal (auarrels^ 117 
 
 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, disordered, and mixed with true 
 clay ; while, here, it is nearly pure and crys- 
 tallizes into its own primitive form, the 
 oblique six-sided one, which you know : and 
 out of these it makes regiments ; and then 
 squares of the regiments, and so charges the 
 rock crystal, literally in square against col- 
 umn. 
 
 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 love- 
 liest 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 crystal.!^ 
 
 L. It did not really cut it, though it 
 passes through it. The two were formed 
 together, as I told you ; but 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 any- 
 thing. It has all the rough outside work; 
 
ii8 n:bc ;i£tbic6 ot tbe BneU 
 
 and every sort of cowardly and weak mineral 
 can shelter itself within it. Look ; these are 
 hexagonal plates of mica ; if they were out- 
 side 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 fiber is on the rock in 
 which it lay, as if the quartz had been as 
 soft as wool. 
 
 Lily. 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 time, w^ith Miss 
 Mary. I was at my lessons, but I 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 quartz in granite." I remember, 
 because I was so disappointed ! 
 
 L. Yes, mousie, 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- 
 
Crystal (Sluarrela^ 119 
 
 then, and now ; I will show you that there- 
 is not, some day. Will you trust me mean- 
 while ? 
 
 Isabel. Won't I ! 
 
 L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece 
 Df courtesy in quartz ; it is on a small scale, 
 3ut wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born 
 quartz living with a green mineral, called 
 epidote ; 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 un- 
 luckily 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. 
 
 Lily {after some silence of wonder^. 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 pearl- 
 spar, and the other, wicked quartz, living 
 
 * Quartz is not much harder than epidote ; the 
 strength is only supposed to be in some proportion to 
 the gquares of the diameters. 
 
J 20 ^be iStbics ot tbc Bust 
 
 with wicked pearl-spar. In both, the quartz 
 yields to the soft carbonate of iron : but, in 
 the first place, 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 crystals 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 surface 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. Might we look at that piece of 
 broken quartz again, with the weak little 
 film across it ? it seems such a strange love- 
 ly 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 
 necessary and noble thing ; but no form nor 
 degree of suicide can be ever lovely. 
 
 Violet. But self-sacrifice is not suicide ! 
 
 L. What is it then ? 
 
 Violet. Giving up one's self for another. 
 
 L. Well ; and what do you mean by ''giv- 
 ing up one's self"? 
 
 Violet. Giving up one's tastes, one's feel- 
 ings, one'S'time, one's happiiaess, and so on, 
 to make others happy. 
 
 L. I hope you will never marry anybody, 
 
Crystal (Siuarrcls^ 121 
 
 Violet, who expects you to make him happy 
 in that way. 
 
 Violet (hesitating). In what way ? 
 
 L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrific- 
 ing your feehngs, 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 ; nei- 
 ther is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But 
 giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender 
 the pleasure of walking, your foot will 
 wither : you 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 
 ^o on maiming, and you will soon slay. 
 
 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 un- 
 derstood that. 
 
 L. Yet it is a sharp order ; one needing to 
 be well understood if it is to be well obeyed I 
 
122 ^be JBtbiC6 of tbe WmU 
 
 When Helen sprained her ankle the other 
 day you saw how strongly it had to be 
 bandaged ; that is to say, prevented 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 you be 
 darkness, and you feet run into mischief, or 
 are taken in the snare, — it is indeed time to 
 pluck out, and cut off, I think : but, so crip- 
 pled, you can never be what you might have 
 been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, 
 halt or maimed ; and the sacrifice is not 
 beautiful, though necessary. 
 
 Violet (cTf/er a pause). But when one 
 sacrifices one's self for others .? 
 
 L. Why not rather others for you ? 
 
 Violet. Oh ! but I couldn't bear that. 
 
 L. Then why should they bear it } 
 
 Dora {bursting in indignant). And Ther- 
 mopylae, and Protesilaus, and Marcus Curtius^ 
 and Arnold de W^inkelried, and Iphigenia and 
 Jephthah's daughter.? 
 
 L. {sustaining the ifidignation unmoved)* 
 And the Samaritan woman's son.? 
 
 Dora. Which Smaritan woman's ? 
 
Cri26tal Quarrels^ 123 
 
 L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29. 
 
 Dora, (obeys). How horrid ! As if we 
 meant anything 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 Up), 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 always have meant, 
 simply this, Dora ; — that the will of God 
 respecting 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 
 
124 ^^^ ;6tbiC6 ot tbe Dust 
 
 other by their joy, not by their sorrow. 
 They are not intended to slay themselves 
 for each other, but to strengthen themselves 
 for each other. And among the many ap- 
 parently 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 fatalist. They have so often 
 been taught that there is a virtue in mere 
 suffering, as such ; and foolishly to hope that 
 ^ood 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 accept 
 pain and defeat as if these were their ap- 
 pointed portion ; never understanding that 
 their defeat is not the less to bemournedbe- 
 cause it is more fatal to their enemies than 
 to them. The one thing that a good man 
 has to do, and to see done, is justice ; he is 
 neither to slay himself nor others cause- 
 lessly : so far from denying 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 
 l)e need for much self-sacrifice and self- 
 
Crystal (auarrel6» 125 
 
 denial in the correction 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 ourselves? 
 
 L. My dear child, in, the daily course and 
 discipline of right life, we must continually 
 and reciprocally submit and surrender in alL 
 kind and courteous and affectionate ways : 
 and these submissions and ministries 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 to others 
 (though it may be needed, and though alL 
 brave creatures hold their lives 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 fulfillment of the contin- 
 uous 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 frame- 
 work of their religion so hollow, that at this. 
 moment, while the English nation, with its 
 lips, pretends to teach every man to '' love 
 
126 '^bc JBVoics ot tbc I>\X6U 
 
 his neighbor 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 peoples labor. Briefly, 
 Ihe 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 " 
 l3ut ''strength," vital energy in the heart. 
 Were not you reading about that group of 
 words beginning with V, — vital, virtuous, 
 vigorous, and so on, — in Max Miiller, the 
 other day, Sibyl ? Can't you tell the others 
 •about it ? 
 
 Sibyl. 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 mor- 
 tify yourselves, 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 ? 
 
Crystal Quarr^.o^ i^hj 
 
 L. Really, Violet, we are g-etting too seri- 
 ous. I've given you enough ethics for one 
 talk, I think ! Do let us have a little play. 
 Lily, what were you so busy about, at the 
 ant-hill in the wood, this morning ? 
 
 Lily. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, 
 not I ; I was only trying to help them a 
 little. 
 
 L. And they wouldn't be helped, I sup- 
 pose ? 
 
 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 tumbhng over and over, — it made one 
 quite pity them ; so I took some of the bits 
 of stick, and carried them forward a little, 
 where 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 
 Prench verb. 
 
 Isabel. Ah ! but you didn't, though ! 
 
 L. Why not, Isabel ? I knew, well enough, 
 Lily couldn't learn that verb by herself 
 
 Isabel. No ; but the ants couldn't help her. 
 
128 TLbc JBtbiC6 of tbe 2)U6t 
 
 L. Are you sure the ants could not have 
 helped you, Lily ? 
 
 Lily \thinking). I ought to have learned 
 something" from them perhaps. 
 
 L. But none of them left their sticks to help 
 you through the irregular verb ? 
 
 Lily. No, indeed. {Laughing, with some 
 others. ) 
 
 L. What are you laughing at, children } I 
 cannot see why the ants should not have 
 left their tasks to help Lily in hers, — 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.'' 
 {Tears in Violet's eyes,') 
 
 Dora {scarlet). It's too bad — it's a shame ; 
 — poor Violet ! 
 
 L. My dear children, there's no reason 
 who one should be so red, and the other so 
 pale, merely because you are made for a 
 moment to feel the absurdity of a phrase 
 which you have been taught to use, in com- 
 mon 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 way in which His name is more 
 guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the 
 abandonment of our own work, the per- 
 \ form an ce of His. 
 
 God is a kind Father. He sets us all in 
 the places where He wishes us to be em- 
 
Crystal ®uarrel0» 129 
 
 ployed ; and that employment 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 either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, 
 it is 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 happy ourselves. Now, away with you, 
 children ; and be as happy as you can. And 
 when you cannot, at least don't plume your- 
 selves upon pouting. 
 
 9 
 
LECTURE 7. 
 
 HOME VIRTUES. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 HOME VIRTUES. 
 By the fireside i in the Drawing-room. Evening, 
 
 Dora. Now, the curtains are drawn, and 
 the fire's bright, and here's your arm-chair — 
 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 morn- 
 ing, Miss Katie. 
 
 Kathleen. Me singing ! 
 
 Mary. Oh, tell us — tell us. 
 
 L. "Vilikens and his — " 
 
 Kathleen {stopping his mouth). Oh. ! please 
 don't. Where were you 1 
 
 Isabel. I'm sure I wish I had known where 
 he was ! We lost him among the rhododen- 
 drons, and I don't know where he got to ; 
 oh, you naughty — naughty — (climbs on his 
 knee). 
 
 Dora. Now, Isabel, we really. want to talk. 
 
134 ^t)e iBtbiCB of tbe WixsU 
 
 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 fakes up a comma?iding position 
 
 near the hearth-brush.) 
 
 Dora (reviewing her forces). Now, Lily, 
 come and sit on the rug in front. 
 (Lily does as she is hid. ) 
 
 L. (seeing he 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 tiresome. 
 
 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 girl's virtues. 
 
 Egypt. Indeed ! And the second } 
 
 L. Dressing. 
 
 Egypt. Now, you needn't say that ! I 
 mended that tear the first thmg before break- 
 fast this morning. 
 
' 1bome \Dlrtue0. 135 
 
 L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical 
 principle, Egypt; 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 hear about 
 virtue. 
 
 Dora {to Egypt). Isn't he cross } 
 
 Egypt. How many balls must we go to in 
 the season, to be perfectly virtuous 1 
 
 L. As many as you can without losing 
 your color. But I did not say you 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 m Egypt." 
 
 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 what it is for). 
 
136 ^be iBtbicB ot tbe S)u6t, 
 
 L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, 
 there's no harm in that. Girls ought to like 
 to be seen. 
 
 Dora (her eyes gashing). Now, you don't 
 mean that ; and you're too provoking ; and 
 we won't dance again, for a month. 
 
 L. It will answ^er every purpose of re- 
 venge, Dora, if you only banish me to the 
 library ; and dance by yourselves ; but I 
 don't think Jessie and Lily will agree to that. 
 You like me to see you dancing, don't you, 
 Lily ? 
 
 Lily. Yes, certainly, — when we do it 
 rightly. 
 
 L. And besides. Miss Dora, if young ladies 
 really do not want to be seen, they should 
 take care not 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 bor- 
 ders than your especially " modest " snow- 
 drop ; 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 see it, and then, half of it 
 is not worth seeing. Girls should be like 
 daisies ; nice and white, 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! 
 
Dome lt)irtuc6. 
 
 ^37 
 
 How long" were you in doing up your back 
 hair this afternoon, Jessie ? 
 
 (Jessie not immediately answering, Dora 
 comes to her assistance. ) 
 
 Dora. Not above three-quarters of an 
 hour, I think, Jess? 
 
 Jessie {putting her finger up). Now, Doro- 
 thy, ^o// 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 way 
 opeii for retreat.) But never mind; it was 
 Avorth the time, whatever it was , and no- 
 body 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 day ; 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 once, as I wanted 
 to. {Endeavors again to make himself com- 
 fortahle. ) 
 
 Isabel. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep^ 
 you naughty ! — Kathleen, come here. 
 
 L. (knowing what he has to expect z/" Kath- 
 leen comes.) Get away, Isabel, you're too 
 heavy. {Sitting up.) What have I been 
 saying .? 
 
 Dora. I do believe he has been asleep all 
 
138 TLbc Btbics ot tbe Dust* 
 
 the time ! You never heard anything like 
 the things you've been saying. 
 
 L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, 
 and anything Hke them, it is all I want. 
 
 Egypt. Yes, but we don't understand, and 
 you know we don't ; and we want to. 
 
 L. What did I say first ? 
 
 Dora. That the first virtue of girls was 
 wanting to go to balls. 
 
 L. I said nothing of the kind. 
 
 Jessie. '' Always wanting to dance, '' you 
 said. 
 
 L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue 
 is to be intensely happy ; — so happy that 
 they don't know what to do with themselves 
 for happiness, — and dance, instead of walk- 
 ing. 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." 
 
 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 somebody 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. 
 
Dome X)nt\xce. 139 
 
 May. But I am sure I have heard a great 
 many g-ood 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 every- 
 body seems to hurry past, that they may get 
 on quickly to the verse about Rachel weep- 
 ing 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 joy." 
 
 {The children get very serious ^ hut look- 
 at each other as if pleased. ) 
 
 Mary. They understand now : but, do you 
 know what you said next } 
 
 L. Yes ; I was not more than half asleep. 
 I said their second virtue was dressing. 
 
 Mary. Well ! what did you mean by that? 
 
 L. What i\oyou mean by dressing.? 
 
 Mary. Wearing fine clothes. 
 
 L. Ah ! there's the mistake. / mean 
 wearing plain ones. 
 
 Mary. Yes, I dare say ! 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 understand 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 
 
J40 ^bc BtbiC6 otjbe Bust, 
 
 ^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, 
 l)efore anybody expects it. 
 
 Egypt {aside to L., piieoiisly). Indeed I 
 have mended that torn flounce quite neatly ; 
 look if I haven't J 
 
 L. {aside to Egypt). All right ; don't be 
 afraid. {Aloud to Dora.) Yes, doubtless; 
 but you know that is only a slow way of 
 .//^/dressing. 
 
 Dora. Then, we are all to learn dress- 
 making, are w^e } 
 
 L. Yes ; and always to dress yourselves 
 beautifully — not finely, unless on occasion ; 
 but then very 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 shower hath. ) 
 
 L. {seeing objections begin to express them- 
 selves in the eyes). Now you needn't say 
 you can't ; for you can and it's -what you 
 ivere meant to do, always ; and to dress 
 your houses and your gardens, too ; and to 
 •do very little else, I believe, except singing ; 
 
Ibomc IDlrtuee* 141 
 
 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 triplicities. 
 
 Dora. Well, we are prepared for anything 
 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 Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and 
 ofRebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It. 
 means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, 
 and balms, and spices ; and of all that is heal- 
 ing and sweet in fields and groves, and- 
 savory in meats ; it means carefulness, and. 
 inventiveness, and watchfulness, and will- 
 ingness, 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 ; it means, in fine, that 
 you are to be perfectly and always ''ladies '*' 
 — "loaf-givers," and, as you are to see, im- 
 peratively, that everybody has something- 
 pretty to put on, — so you are to see, yet: 
 more imperatively, that everybody has some- 
 thing nice to eat. 
 
142 Zbc iBtbice of tbe 5)u6t^ 
 
 (Another pause, a?id long drawn 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 : — you would be lying 
 
 awake, and trying to make it out, half the 
 
 .night. That will never do. 
 
 Isabel. Oh, please ! 
 
 L. It would please me exceedingly, 
 mousie : but there are times when we must 
 both be displeased ; more's the pity. Lily 
 may stay for half an hour, if she likes. 
 
 Lily. I can't, because Isey never goes to 
 «leep, 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. 
 Jt's only 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 
 
IDome lt)trtue0» 
 
 143 
 
 outcome of it, so, than if you were to hear 
 ah the talks that ever were talked, and all 
 the stories that ever were told. Good-night, 
 (^Jlie door leading io the C07ide7n?ied cells 
 of the Dormitory closes on Lily, Isabel, 
 Florrie, and other diminutive and sub- 
 missive victi7ns.y 
 
 Jessie (after a pause). Vvliy, I thought 
 you were so fond of jMiss Edgeworth. 
 
 L. So I am ; and so you ought all to be. 
 I can 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 pleas- 
 anter or v/iscr people ; no one v/ho 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 one's hand : — to have everybody found 
 out, v/ho tells lies ; and everybody decorated 
 with a red libbon, 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 pur- 
 pose ; and poor, dear, little Rosamond, 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 
 
144 ^t)e iBtbics ot tbe BneU 
 
 meant that the rig-ht was to be done mainly 
 
 because one is always rewarded for doing it. 
 
 /It is an injustice to her to say that; her 
 
 I heroines always do right simply for its own 
 
 I sake, as they should ; and her examples of 
 
 I 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 suffering 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 dinnerparties, and 
 
 being put over everybody else's head. 
 
 Dora. But what docs 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 ; carrying whatever you find is 
 given you to carry, as well and stoutly as 
 you can ; without making faces, or calling 
 people to come and look at you. Above all, 
 you are neither to load, nor unload, your- 
 self; 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 
 
fbomc mvtnce. 145 
 
 straight as you can; and not think about |k 
 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 was to tell you about 
 the words that began with V. Sibyl, whatf 
 does ''virtue'' mean literally.? 
 
 Sibyl. Does it mean courage ? 
 
 L. Yes ; but a particular kind of courage. 
 It means courage of the nerve ; vital cour- 
 age. That first syllable of it, if you look in 
 Max M tiller, 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 story, 
 when it becomes a serpent, or strikes 
 the rock ; or when Aaron's bears its al- 
 monds ; and in the metaphorical expres- 
 sions, 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, constantly, 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 manners (or morals) of purity, justice, 
 kindness, and courage. Once rightly 
 trained, they act as they should irrespect- 
 10 
 
146 ^be jemce ot tbe BneU 
 
 lively 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 lying, 
 stealing, and murdering. I think quite one 
 of the notablest historical events of this 
 century (perhaps the very notablest), 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 {a/jter a pause). But, surely, if 
 people weren't afraid — (hesitates again). 
 
 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 have 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 ap- 
 prentice — fancy the boy's coming home at 
 night, and saying, '' Father, I could have 
 
1bome Viitnce. 147 
 
 robbed the till to-day ; but I didn't, be- 
 cause 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, you must not rob tills " ? And 
 nothing is ever done so as really to please 
 our Great Father, unless we would also have 
 done it, though we had no Father to know 
 of it. 
 
 Violet (after long pause). But, then, 
 what continual 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 simple statements of 
 the Divine law, and of its consequences. 
 The fact is truly told you, — make what use 
 you may of it : and as collateral warning, or 
 encouragement, 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 measuring the poisoned in- 
 fluence 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 al- 
 ways a considerable quantity of pride, to 
 
148 Zbc JBXbiCB ot tbe S)u6t 
 
 beg-in 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, my dear ? P'rom 
 the abyss of misery and ruin which that false 
 Christianity allowed the whole active world 
 to live in. When it had become the princi- 
 pal amusement, and the most admired art 
 of Christian men, to cut one another's 
 throats, and burn one another's towns ; of 
 course the few feeble or reasonable persons 
 left, who desired quiet, safety, and kind 
 fellowship, got into cloisters ; and the gen- 
 tlest, 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 towers 
 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, dan- 
 gling 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 be- 
 lieve me, children, I am no warped wit- 
 
1bome Dirtues* 149 
 
 ness, as far as regards monasteries ; or if 
 I am, it is in their favor. I have always 
 had a strong leaning that way ; and have 
 pensively shivered with Augustines at St. 
 Bernard ; and happily made hay with Fran- 
 ciscans at Fesole ; and sat silent with Car- 
 thusians in their little gardens, south of 
 Florence ; and mourned through many a 
 day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But 
 the wonder is always to me, not how much, 
 but how little, the monks have, on the 
 w^hole, done, with all that leisure, and all 
 that good-will ! What nonsense monks 
 characteristically wrote ; — what little prog- 
 ress they made in the sciences to which 
 they devoted themselves as a duty, — medi- 
 cine especially ; and, last and worst, what 
 depths of degradation they can som times 
 see one another, and the population round 
 them, sink into ; without either doubting 
 their system, or reforming it ! 
 
 {Seeing questions rising to lips.) Hold 
 your little tongues, children ; it's very late, 
 and you'll make me forget what I've to say. 
 Fancy yourselves in pews, for five minutes. 
 There's one point of possible good in the 
 conventual system, which is always attrac- 
 tive to young girls ; and the idea is a very 
 dangerous one ; — the notion of a merit, or 
 exalting virtue, consisting in a habit of medi- 
 tation on the ''things above," or things of 
 the next world. Now it is quite true, that a 
 person of beautiful mind, dwelling on what- 
 
150 Zbc iQtbiCB ot tbc WneU 
 
 ever appears to them most desirable and 
 lovely in a possible future, will not only pass 
 their time pleasantly, but will even acquire, 
 at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of 
 manner and feature, 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 
 observe, children, that we have no real au- 
 thority for the reveries to which it is owing. 
 We are told nothing distinctly of the heavenly 
 world ; except that it will be free from sor- 
 row, 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 intercourse, 
 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 amiable people for pleasing themselves 
 in this innocent way, it is beyond question, 
 
1bome \Dirtue6. 
 
 151 
 
 that to seclude themselves from the rough 
 duties of life, merely to write religious ro- 
 mances, 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, observe, 
 even in admitting thus much, I have as- 
 sumed that the fancies are just and beautiful, 
 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 observing what ignoble imagina- 
 tions have sometimes sufficiently, 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 Byzantine image of Christ, 
 which, if you will look at it seriously, may, 
 I think, at once and forever render you cau- 
 tious in the indulgence of a merely contem- 
 plative 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, 
 
152 Zbc Btbice ot tbe Duet. 
 
 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 to- 
 wards the conception of a Redeeming Deity, 
 may make you, I think, very doubtful, even 
 of the Divine approval, — much more of the 
 Divine inspiration, — of religious reverie in 
 general. You feel, doubtless, that your own 
 idea of Christ would be something very dif- 
 ferent from this ; but in what does the differ- 
 ence consist ? Not in any more divine au- 
 thority in your imagination ; but in the in- 
 tellectual 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 acquired 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 always 
 retain his power over everybody ? 
 
 L. Yes, I should think, always ; as the 
 gentle words of a child will : but you would 
 be much surprised, Mary, if you thoroughly 
 
Ibomc \t)(rtue5. 153 
 
 took the pains to analyze, and had the per- 
 fect means of analyzing, that power of An- 
 gelico, — to discover its real sources. Of 
 course it is natural, at first, to attribute it to 
 the pure religious fervor by which he was 
 inspired ; but do you suppose Angelico was 
 really the only monk, in all the Christian 
 world of the middle ages, who labored, in 
 art, with a sincere religious enthusiasm ? 
 
 Mary. No, certainly not 
 
 L. Anything more frightful, more destruc- 
 tive 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 evi- 
 dence 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 weak- 
 ness. The effect of "inspiration," 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 the most palpable follies. There is 
 evidently within him a sense of grace, and 
 
154 ^t)c BtbiC0 ot tbc 1S>\X6U 
 
 power of invention, as great as Ghiberti's : — 
 we are in the habit of attributing those high 
 qualities to 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 
 are not. Whereas, comparing him with 
 contemporary great artists, of equal grace 
 and invention, one peculiar character re- 
 mains notable in him— which, logically, we 
 ought therefore to attribute to the religious 
 fervor ; — and that distincti^^e character is^ 
 the contented indulgence of his own weak- 
 nesses, and perseverance in his own igno- 
 rances. 
 
 Mary. But that's dreadful ! And what zs 
 the source of the peculiar charm which we 
 all feel in his word ? 
 
 L. There are many sources of it, Mary ; 
 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 modify^ 
 ing element, not the creative one. Consider 
 carefully what delights you in any original 
 picture 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 labor and thought of millions of artists, 
 of all nations ; from the earliest Egyptian 
 potters downwards — Greeks, Byzantines, 
 Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and Northmen — all 
 
f)ome IDtrtuee* 
 
 155 
 
 joining in the toil ; and consummating it in 
 Florence, in that century, with such em- 
 broidery of robe and inlaying of armor as 
 had never been seen till then ; nor probably, 
 ever will be seen more. Angelico merely 
 takes his share of this inheritance, and ap- 
 plies it in the tenderest way to subjects 
 which are peculiarly acceptant of it. But 
 the inspiration, if it exists anywhere, flashes 
 on the knight's shield quite as radiantly as 
 on the monk's picture. Examining farther 
 into the source of your emotions in the An- 
 gelico work, you will find much of the im- 
 pression 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 Angel- 
 ico's inspiration. It is only a peculiarly" 
 tender use of systems of grouping which had 
 been long before developed by Giotto, Mem- 
 mi, and Orcagna ; and the real root of it 
 all is simply — What do you think, children ? 
 The beautiful dancing of the Florentine- 
 maidens ! 
 
 Dora (indignant again). Now, I wonder 
 what next ! Why not say it all depended 
 on Herodias' daughter, at once ? 
 
 L. Yes ; it is certainly a great argument 
 against singing that there were once sirens. 
 
 Dora. Well, it may be all very fine and 
 philosophical, but shouldn't I just like ta 
 read you the end of the second volume of 
 '* Modern Paiiiterb " 1 
 
 G^/i€^ 
 
156 XLbc Btbtcs of tbe Duet 
 
 L. My dear, do you think any teacher 
 could be 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 ? But 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 Angelico. 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 distin- 
 guish the weaknesses from the virtues of 
 what you love, else you might come to love 
 l)oth alike ; or even the weaknesses without 
 the virtues. You might end by liking Over- 
 l^eck 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 
 advantapfes resultino^, in certain cases, from 
 enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the 
 other practices of saints and anchorites. 
 The evidence respecting them has never yet 
 been honestly collected, much less dispas- 
 sionately 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 
 
1bomc lt)irtuc6» 
 
 157 
 
 active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The 
 hope of attaining a higher rehgious 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." 
 
 
 /JLaaT^ /^ 
 
 4^ ctAA^Aj/y^Wv^ 
 
LECTURE 8. 
 
 CRYSTAL CAPRICE. 
 
LECTURE Vni. 
 
 CRYSTAL CAPRICE, 
 
 Formal Lecture in Schoolroom^ after some practical eX' 
 amination of minerals 
 
 L. We 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 antag- 
 onism, 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 antagonistic force ; but merely 
 to the variable humor and caprice of the 
 crystals themselves : and I have asked you 
 all to come into the schoolroom to-day, 
 because, of course, this is a part of the crys- 
 tal mind which must be peculiarly interest- 
 ing to a feminine audience. {Great symp- 
 toms of disapproval on the part of said 
 audience.) Now you need not pretend that 
 II i6i 
 
1 62 Zbc iBtbice ot tbc Dust. 
 
 it will 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 crystalline in 
 brightness, as well as in caprice, charm in- 
 finitely, by infinitude of change. {Audible 
 murmurs of"' Worse and worse!" " As if 
 we could he got over that way I " Etc. Hie 
 Lecturer, however, observi7ig the expression 
 of the features to he more complacent, pro- 
 ceeds.) 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 countries. With a little 
 experience, it is quite possible 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 pro- 
 duced 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 
 circumstances which affect it, we could fore- 
 tell 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 butterflies ; and the peasant girls of 
 Munich theirs in the shape of shells, than to 
 
Cri26tal Caprice^ 163 
 
 ^ay why 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-colored, and in octahe- 
 drons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, 
 and in cubes. Still farther removed is the 
 hope, at present, of accounting for minor 
 differences in modes of grouping and con- 
 struction. Take, for instance, the caprices 
 of this single mineral, quartz ; — variations 
 upon a single theme. It has many forms ; 
 but see what it will make out of this one, 
 the six-sided prism. For shortness' sake, 
 I shall call the body of the prism its 
 "column," and the pyramid at the extremi- 
 ties 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 you 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 crystal 
 with its column fat in the middle, and taper- 
 ing 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 both these last, the little 
 
164 ^bc BtblC0 ot tbe Dust 
 
 crystals are set anyhow, and build the larg& 
 one in a disorderly way ; but here is a crys- 
 tal 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 crystal .? 
 
 L. What do you mean by a group, and 
 what by one crystal ? 
 
 Dora {audibly aside, to Mary, who is brought 
 to pause). You know you are never ex- 
 pected to answer, Mary. 
 
 L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What 
 do you mean by a group of people ? 
 
 Mary. Three or four together, or a good 
 many together, like the caps in these crys- 
 tals. 
 
 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 are a little 
 gray and cold in color, but most of them 
 are clear. 
 
 Isabel. But they're in such horrid, hor- 
 Jid disorder ! 
 
Cri^stal Caprice^ 165 
 
 L. Yes ; all disorder is horrid, when it is 
 among things that arc naturally orderly. 
 Some little girli-' rooms are naturally di'soT- 
 derly, I suppose ; or I don't know how they 
 could live in them, if they cry out so when 
 Ihey 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 
 2s wonderful — as we have seen ; but to me, 
 as to you, child, the supremely wonderful 
 thing is that nature should ever be ruinous, 
 or wasteful, or deathful ! I look at this wild 
 piece of crystallization with endless astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 Mary. Where does it come from ? 
 
 L. The Tete Noire of Chamounix. What 
 makes it more strange is that it should be in 
 a vain of fine quartz. If it were in a mold- 
 ering rock, it would be natural enough ; but 
 in the midst of so fine substance, here are 
 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. 
 
i66 ^be Btbics ot tbe W\X6U 
 
 Mary. But surely this is ruin, not cap- 
 rice ! 
 
 L. I believe it is in great part misfortune ; 
 and we will examine these crystal troubles 
 in next lecture. 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 picturesque or not, the tricks which the 
 goblins (as I am told) teach the crystals in. 
 them, are incomparably pretty. They work 
 chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish- 
 colored carbonate of lime; which comes- 
 out of a gray 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 cir- 
 clets, as bright as silver, as if for the gnome 
 princesses to wear ; here it is in beautiful 
 little plates, for them to eat off ; presently it 
 
Crystal Caprfce* 167 
 
 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 recognize 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-humored ; and of course, 
 also, there are ill-humored crystals who tor- 
 ment each other, and annoy quieter crystals, 
 yet without coming to anything like serious 
 war. Here (for once) is some ill-disposed 
 quartz, tormenting 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 you 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 these Hartz things for 
 you, and thinking of the sort of grotesque 
 
1 68 ^be Btbics of tbe Duet. 
 
 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. Bar- 
 bara 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, whatever 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 founda- 
 tions ; and I believe, 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. Neith was 
 sitting weaving, and I thought she looked 
 sad, and drew 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-colored, 
 and bright. Her hair fell over her shoulders 
 in long, delicate waves, from under a little 
 three-pinnacled crown, like a tower. She 
 was asking Neith about the laws of architect- 
 
 * Note V. 
 
Cri^stal Gapricc* 169 
 
 lire 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 have 
 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 val- 
 leys, 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 pin- 
 nacles : 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 gi'ave 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 am sure you 
 know 1 
 'L. If I did, it would not make me sure 
 ^ that you knew too, May : but 1 don't. 
 
 Violet {expressing the incredulity 0/ the 
 <iudience). Oh, — sir ! 
 
lyo Zbc ;£tbics ot tbc S)ust. 
 
 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 everybody 
 who is called a saint was one ; nor whether 
 everybody who isn't called a saint, isn't one. 
 {General silence ; the audience feeling 
 themselves on the verge of the Iiifiniiies, 
 and a little shocked, a7id 7?iuch puz- 
 zled by so Many questio7is at once. ) 
 
 L. Besides, did you never hear that verse 
 about being " called to be saints "? 
 
 ]\Iay {repeats Rom. i. 7). 
 
 L. Quite right, ]\Iay. Well, then, who 
 are called to be that ? People in Rome 
 only ? 
 
 May. Everybody, 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 1 
 
 May. Oh, I hope not. 
 
 L. Why not little girls, then ? 
 {Pause). 
 
 Lily. Because, you know, we can't be 
 worth anything 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 
 
Cri26tal Gaptice* 17 1 
 
 are not more able or willing for their diffi- 
 culties than you children are for yours. AIL 
 I can say is, that if ever I see any of you, 
 when you are seven or eight and twenty, 
 knitting your 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 sa)r 
 anything then .? 
 
 L. Yes. She said, quite quietly, '' It may- 
 be very pretty, my love ; but it is all non- 
 sense." 
 
 Isabel. Oh dear, oh dear ; and then } 
 
 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 
 
1/2 ^be Btbic6 ot tbe Dust* 
 
 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. Bar- 
 bara 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 m.y spearshaft as it rose. 
 But this pinnacle and flame work which has 
 set your little heart on fire is all vanity ; 
 and you will soon see what it will come to, 
 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 
 ^uide them kindly, and long." I3ut St. Bar- 
 bara answered, that, '^Indeed she thought 
 every one liked her work,'"' and that ''the 
 people of 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 something 
 with her, wall against tower; and ''see 
 whether the people will be as much pleased 
 
Crystal Gapdcc^ 175 
 
 with your building as with mine. " But Neitk 
 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 colors 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 con- 
 secrate it, and not an archbishop." St. 
 Barbara started a little, I thought, and 
 turned as if to say something ; but changed 
 her 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 colors, I thought ; but per- 
 haps it was only after the glittering of St. 
 Barbara's embroidered train : and I tried to 
 
174 ^be iBtbics ot tbe Dust 
 
 make out the figures in Neith's web, and 
 confused myself among them, as one al- 
 ways 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 quarreling ; 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 awhile 
 I began to understand what the matter was. 
 It seemed that some of the troublesome 
 building imps, who meddle and make con- 
 tinually, 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 Stras- 
 bourg and Cologne cathedrals, with nothing 
 to do but to make mouths at the people 
 below. However, they thought they knew 
 everything about tower building ; and those 
 who had heard what Neith said, told the 
 rest ; and they all flew down directly, chat- 
 tering in German, like jackdaws, to show 
 Neith's people what they could do. And 
 Ihey had found some of Neith s old work- 
 
Crr?0tal Caprice* 175 
 
 people 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 awhile, 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 somer- 
 saults for joy ; and put the tips of their 
 tongues out slyly 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 them- 
 selves. Then the Egyptian 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 as they 
 liked, but they would not move the plan of 
 their pyramid again." Then the little Ger- 
 mans took three , pieces, and began to build 
 three spires directly ; one large, and two 
 little. And when the Egyptians saw they 
 
176 Zbc BtbiC6 ot tbe 'DmU 
 
 had fairly begun, they laid their founda- 
 tion 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 pro- 
 voked because they could not spoil the 
 shape of the pyramid ; 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 elbow^s 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, Himmel ! " 
 and flew down in a 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 
 
Cri2Stal Caprice* 177 
 
 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 were but weak 
 imps, and could not fly with stones on their 
 backs), and then they made traceried gal- 
 leries for them to run round by ; and so up 
 again ; with finer and finer work, till the 
 Egyptians wondered w^hether they meant. 
 the thing for a tower or a pillar : and I 
 heard them saying to one another, "It was 
 nearly as pretty as lotos 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 work as high as the upper 
 course, but three or four, of the pyramid — 
 the Egyptians called out to them to '' mind 
 what they were about, for the sand was 
 running away from under one of their tower 
 corners." But it was too late to mind what 
 they were about ; for, in another instant, the 
 whole tower sloped aside ; and the Gothic: 
 
ijS XTbc JBthicB ot tbc 5)U6t. 
 
 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 pop- 
 lar, 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 miser- 
 ably ; or abolished more justly by the ac- 
 complishment 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 correspondent with it in 
 extravagance. 
 
 Mary. But, then, where is the crystal about 
 Avhich you dreamed all this ? 
 
 L. Here ; but I suppose little Pthah has 
 touched it again, for it is very small. But, 
 you see, here is the pyramid, built of great 
 square stones of fluor spar, straight up ; 
 and here are the three little pinnacles of 
 mischievous quartz, which have set them- 
 selves, at the same time, on the same foun- 
 
Crystal Caprice^ 179 
 
 da-tion ; 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 terminated 
 imperfectly : but 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 ca- 
 prices — 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 away in their time, like 
 all else. If there's any pity in you, 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 
 
i8o Zbc Btbics ot tbe Dust. 
 
 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 is a shrewdly 
 wise one. 
 
 Dora {pensive for once). I suppose it is- 
 very dreadful to be old ! But then {bright- 
 eni7ig agaiii), what should we do without 
 our dear old friends, and our nice old lect^ 
 ures ? 
 
 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, — well come, and cry. 
 
LECTURE 9. 
 
 CRYSTAL SORROWS. 
 
LECTURE TX. 
 
 CRYSTAL SORROIVS. 
 Working Lecture in Schoolroom, 
 
 L. We have been hitherto talking, chil- 
 dren, as if crystals might live, and play, 
 and quarrel, and behave ill or well, accord- 
 ing to their characters without interruption 
 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 misfortunes. It we could 
 see far enough, we should find, indeed, that, 
 at the root, all their vices were misfortunes ; 
 but to-day I want you to see what sort of 
 troubles the best crystals have to go through,, 
 occasionally, by no fault of their own. 
 
 This black thing, which is one of the pret- 
 tiest of the very few pretty black things in 
 tlie 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 
 
 183 
 
i84 ^be ;i8tbiC6 of tbe Duet 
 
 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 of? 
 
 L. A little of everything ; there's always 
 flint, and clay, and magnesia in it ; and the 
 black is iron, according 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 there's pot- 
 ash, and soda ; and, on the whole, the 
 chemistry of it is more like a mediaeval doc- 
 tor's prescription, than the making of a re- 
 spectable mineral : but it may, perhaps, 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 frag- 
 ment, keeping the line of the original crystal, 
 while the quartz fills up the intervening 
 spaces. Now Tourmaline has a trick of do- 
 ing 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 are 
 heaved and warped away from each other 
 
Crigstal Sorrows* 185 
 
 sideways, almost 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.f* 
 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 some- 
 limes, 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 tourma- 
 line, — here is a stone which will show you 
 multitudes of them in operation at once. 
 It is known as '^brecciated agate,'' beauti- 
 ful, as you see ; and highly valued as a peb- 
 ble : yet, so far as I can read or hear, no 
 one has ever looked at it with the least at- 
 tention. 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 wonderful 
 in this, if this were all. It is well-known 
 that by the movements of strata, portions of 
 Tock are often shattered to pieces : — well 
 known also that agate is a deposit of flint 
 by water under certain conditions of heat 
 
i86 ^bc BtblC6 of tbc Du6t» 
 
 and pressure : there is, therefore, nothing 
 wonderful in an agate's being brolcen ; and 
 nothing wonderful in its being mended with 
 the solution out of which it was itself orig- 
 inally congealed. And with this explana- 
 tion 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 com- 
 posed 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 un- 
 conquerableness 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 else, — with theories, or the contra- 
 diction of theories ; you neither get head- 
 
ache nor heart-burning ; and you never more 
 waste your poor little store of strength or 
 allowance of time. 
 
 However, there are certain facts, about 
 this gate-making, which I can tell you ; 
 and then you may look at it in : pleasant 
 wonder as long as you like ; pleasant won- 
 der 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 wnth extreme dim- 
 ness conceive the force exerted on mount- 
 ains in transitional states of movement 
 You have all read a little geology ; and you 
 know how coolly geologists talk of mount- 
 ains being raised or depressed. They talk 
 coolly of it, because they are accustomed ta 
 the fact ; but the very universality of the 
 fact prevents us from ever conceiving dis- 
 tinctly the conditions of force involved. You 
 know I was living last year in Savoy ; my 
 house was on the back of a sloping mount- 
 ain, which rose gradually for two miles 
 behind it ; and then fell at once in a great 
 precipice toward 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^^ 
 biscuitSi on the floor, on the top of one 
 another ; and try to break them all in half, 
 not by bending, but by holding one half 
 
iS8 ^be letbice of tbe 2)U6t» 
 
 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 
 Ihousand feet, grinding against the other as 
 it rose, — and you will have some idea of the 
 making of the Mont Saleve. 
 
 j\Iay. But it must crush the rocks all to 
 dust. 
 
 L. No ; for there is no room for dust. 
 The pressure 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 never can 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 essen- 
 tially 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 powerfully in action, 
 where the rents and faults are deep and 
 many. 
 
 Dora. If you please, sir, — would you tell 
 us — what are " faults " ? 
 
 L. You never heard of such things ? 
 
 Dora. Never in all our lives. 
 
 L. When a vein of rock, which is going on 
 
Crystal Sorrows. 189 
 
 smoothly, is interrupted by another trouble- 
 some 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 veia 
 that interrupts it ; but the miners always call 
 it the fault of the vein that is interrupted. 
 
 Dora. So it is, if it does 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 interrupted, 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 Saleve, 
 is 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 magnifi- 
 
190 Zbc jBtbice ot Voc Dixst* 
 
 ccnce, you will nearly always find it owing" 
 i;o 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, 
 liowever, that we have no clear evidence, 
 hitherto, of the time taken to produce any 
 of them. We know that a change of tem- 
 perature 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 chang- 
 ing, and therefore masses of rock must be 
 -expanding or contracting, with infinite slow- 
 ness, but with infinite force. This pressure 
 must result in mechanical strain somewhere, 
 l3oth in their own substance, and in that of 
 the rocks surrounding them : and we can 
 form no conception of the result of irresist- 
 ible pressure, applied so as to rend and 
 raise, with imperceptible slowness of grada- 
 tion, masses thousands of feet m 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, ex- 
 cept to find out the shortest way of killing 
 each other. But, besides this 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 Saleve limestone from the edge 
 of one of the principal faults which have 
 : formed the precipice ; it is a lovely compact 
 j limestone, and the fault itself is filled up with 
 [ a red breccia, formed of the crushed frag- 
 ments 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 surface, 
 without so much as feeling the place w^here 
 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. 
 
 {Tlie audiefice examine the stone, and 
 touch it timidly, hut the matter remains 
 inconceivable to them.) 
 Mary {struck by the beauty of the stone). 
 Eut this is almost marble } 
 
 L. It is quite marble. And another sin- 
 gular point in the business, to my mind, is 
 that these stones, which men have been cut- 
 ting into slabs, for thousands of years, to 
 ornament their principal buildings with, — 
 and which, under the general name of " mar- 
 ble," have been the delight of the eyes, and 
 the wealth of architecture, among all civil- 
 ized nations, — are precisely those on which 
 the sjgns and brands of these earth agonies 
 have been chiefly struck ; and there is not a 
 purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which 
 
192 ^be :6tbiC5 of tbc S)u6t» 
 
 is not the record of their ancient torture. 
 What a boundless capacity for sleep, and for 
 serene stupidity, there is in the human mind t 
 Fancy reflective beings, who cut and polish 
 stones for three thousand years, for the sake 
 of the pretty stains upon them ; and edu- 
 cate themselves to an art at last (such as it 
 is), of imitating- these veins by dexterous 
 painting ; and never a curious soul of them, 
 all that while, asks, "What painted the 
 rocks ? '' 
 
 (77z^ audience look dejected^ and ashamed 
 of themselves. ) 
 
 The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, 
 through our lives ; and it is only by pinch- 
 ing ourselves very hard that we ever come ta 
 see, or understand, anything. At least, it is 
 not always we who pinch ourselves ; some- 
 times other people pinch us ; which I sup- 
 pose 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 o/ the audience, on this, appearing- 
 to think that the others require pinch- 
 ing, the Lecturer changes the subject. ) 
 
 Now, however, for once, look at a piece 
 of marble carefully, and think about it. 
 You see 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 
 
Crystal Sorrows. 193 
 
 of the fibers 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 separate : 
 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 con- 
 tains, and then to have crystallized with 
 them, and round them. And the brecciated 
 agate I first showed you contains exactly the 
 same phenomena ; a zoned crystallization 
 going on amidst the cemented fragments, 
 partly altering the structure of those frag- 
 ments themselves, and subject to continual 
 change, either in the intensity of its own 
 power, or in the nature of the materials sub- 
 mitted to it ; — so that, at one time, gravity 
 acts upon them, and disposes them in hori- 
 zontal layers, or causes them to droop in 
 stalactites ; and at another, gravity is en- 
 tirely defied, and the substances in solution 
 are crystallized in bands of equal thickness 
 on every side of the cell. It would require a 
 course of lectures longer than these (I have 
 a great mind — 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 magnificent breccia 
 
 13 
 
194 ^t>^ lBtbiC6 ot tbe Dust* 
 
 (agates and jaspers imbedded in porphyry), 
 out of which it is hewn, material for the 
 thought of years ; and recorded of the earth- 
 sorrow of ages in comparison with the dura- 
 tion 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 crystalli- 
 zation goes on under, and partly records cir- 
 cumstances of this kind — circumstances of 
 infinite variety, but always involving diffi-. 
 culty, 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 widen- 
 ing 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, probably 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 sub- 
 stance ; — by capillary attraction when they 
 are fine, — by that of pure vacuity 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 sup- 
 plied in all variation of volume and power 
 from below ; or, slovyly, by the decomposi- 
 
Cri^stal Sorrows. 195 
 
 lion of the rocks themselves ; and, at chang- 
 ing temperatures, must exert relatively 
 changing forces of decomposition and com- 
 bination on the walls of the veins they fill ; 
 while water, at every degree of heat and 
 pressure (from beds of everlasting ice, alter- 
 nate 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 In- 
 dian seas, as your own pulses lift your brace- 
 lets, 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 won- 
 derfully like human creatures, — forget all 
 that is going on if they don't see it, how- 
 ever 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 what- 
 ever of the lava or the flood which may 
 break over them any day ; and evaporate 
 them into air-bubbles, or wash them into a 
 solution of salts. And you may look at 
 them, once understanding the surrounding 
 conditions of their fate, with an endless in- 
 terest. You will see crowds of unfortunate 
 little crystals, who have been forced to con- 
 
196 ^be ietbiC6 ot tbe Dust 
 
 stitute themselves in a hurry, their dissolving' 
 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 decompo- 
 sition ; so that one doesn't know what will 
 become of them. And sometimes you will 
 see deceitful crystals, that look as soft as vel« 
 vet, 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), and are 
 endlessly gentle and true wherever gentle- 
 ness and truth are 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 
 
Cri26tal Sorrows^ 197 
 
 up their living-, and learn manners where they 
 can. And sometimes you will see fat crys- 
 tals eating up thin ones, like g-reat capitalists 
 and little laborers ; and politico-economic 
 crystals' teachings- the stupid ones how to eat 
 each other, and cheat each other ; and fool- 
 ish 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 crystals 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 them- 
 selves, 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 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 crys- 
 tal ghosts : — when the strength by which 
 they grew and the breath given them to 
 breathe, pass away from them ; and they fail, 
 and are consumed, and vanish away ; and 
 another generation is brought to life, framed 
 out of their ashes. 
 
 Mary. It is very terrible. Is it not the 
 
198 ^be Btbic6 ot.tbe 2)u6t 
 
 complete fulfillment, 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 r 
 at least, the evidence tends to show that 
 there is much more pleasure than pain, aa 
 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 proportion 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 or« 
 dinary 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 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 
 
 Y.QXvT{i7iterrupting). Could not you some~ 
 times 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. 
 
Cri26tal Sorrows* 199 
 
 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 sewing ; — 
 though you always seem to think I am 
 laughing at you. In all seriousness, illus- 
 trations from sewing are those which Neith 
 likes me best to use ; and which young 
 ladies ought to like everybody to use. 
 What do you think the beautiful word 
 '* wife " comes from.? 
 
 Dora {iossmg her 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 the Greek. 
 I hope the French will some day get a word 
 for it, yet, insteadof 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 some- 
 thing. Wife means '' weaver." You have 
 all the right to call yourselves little '/ house- 
 wives," when you sew neatly. 
 
 Dora. But I don't think we want to call 
 ourselves '' httle housewives." 
 
200 ^bc JSthics ot tbe DixeU 
 
 L. You must either be house-Wives, or 
 house-Moths ; remember that. In the deep 
 s^se, you must either weave men's fort- 
 unes, 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. W^hen 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 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 mountain 
 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 mate- 
 rial the rock can find ; and often literally 
 with threads ; for the gradually opening rent 
 seems to draw the substance it is filled with 
 
Crystal Sorrows, 201 
 
 into fibers, 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 center; 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 away by them : and another little sup- 
 plementary vein — often three or four suc- 
 cessively — 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 
 limestones 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 dry 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 
 
202 Zbc iBthics ot tbe Bust 
 
 exposed to the weather, the fine fibrous struc- 
 ture is shown : and, more than that, you see 
 the threads have been all twisted and pulled 
 aside, this way and the other, by the warp- 
 ings 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 re- 
 newal. 
 
 All things seem to be tending towards a 
 condition of at least temporary rest; and 
 that groaning and travailing of the 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 ! 
 
 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 all the 
 ground, and make your difficulties thoroughly 
 presentable. Then we'll see what we can 
 make of them. 
 
Cri26tal Sorrows* 203 
 
 Dora. They shall all be dresed 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 me 
 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 made some- 
 thing, or (better still) 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 da 
 know their own minds, as you do your-^ 
 selves. 
 
 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 that 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 10. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL REST. 
 
LECTURE K 
 
 THE CRYSTAL REST, 
 
 Evening. The fireside. L.'j" arm-chair in the 
 comfortable corner. 
 
 L. (^perceiving various arrangements being 
 Tnade o/ footstool, cushion, screen, and the 
 like). Yes, yes, it's all very fine I 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 ! We can fetch it 
 him here, you know, so nicely ! 
 
 L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with 
 competitive examination going on over ones 
 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 them for supper. 
 I3ut I can't help myself, I suppose ; — no 
 thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, 
 and I'll answer as civilly as may be. 
 
 Dora. We don't so much care about being 
 answered civilly, as about not being asked 
 things back again. 
 
 207 
 
2o8 Zbc Btbics ot tbe 2)u6t» 
 
 L. '' Ayez seulement la patience que je le- 
 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 under- 
 stand how much you are in play, and how 
 much in earnest. That's the first thing. 
 
 L. Neither do T 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. Tm 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 ? " 
 
 Dora. Yes ; but we want to come back to 
 that : for we've been reading scientific books 
 about the '* conservation of forces," audit 
 seems all so grand, and wonderful ; and the 
 experiments are so pretty ; and I suppose it 
 must be all right : but then the books never 
 speak as if there were any such thing as 
 *Mife" 
 
 L. They mostly omit that part of the sub- 
 ject, certainly, Dora ; but they are beautifully 
 right as far as they go ; and life is not a con- 
 venient element to deal with. They seem 
 
Zbc Crystal 1Rc6t» 209 
 
 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, liter- 
 ally 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 arc 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), 
 m a tea-kettle as in a Gier-eagle. Ver^ 
 good ; that is so ; and it is very interesting. 
 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 principal 
 interest to the difference in their forms. For 
 
2IO TTbe lBtbiC6 ot tbe Du6t 
 
 us, the primarily cognizable 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 
 lousiness. 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 fulfillment of it, which 
 appears to us the more interesting circum- 
 stance ; — though the other is very interesting 
 too. Exceedingly so ! Don't laugh, chil- 
 dren ; the philosophers have been doing 
 quite splendid work lately, in their own 
 way : especially, the transformation of force 
 into light is a great piece of systematized 
 discovery ; and this notion about the suns 
 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 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 ham- 
 
^be Crystal IRest 211 
 
 Tner 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 imderstand ; 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 un- 
 derstand. 
 
 L. So you should : but hold fast to the 
 form, and defend that first, as distinguished 
 from the mere transition of forces. Discern 
 the molding hand of the potter command- 
 ing the clay, from his merely beating foot, 
 as it turns the wheel. If you can find in- 
 cense, in the vase, afterwards, — well : but 
 it is curious how far mere form will carry 
 you ahead of the philosophers. For in- 
 stance, 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 ar- 
 rangement which we call an eye. The Ger- 
 man philosophers began the attack, long 
 
212 Zbc )EtbiC6 ot tbc Dust 
 
 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 in- 
 sist 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 'Might'* 
 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 in- 
 spiration, and the golden bough, and the 
 like ; only I remembered I was not to 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 push-^ 
 ing 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 
 
Zbc Cri26tal IRest* 213 
 
 is a great separator ; it is little more than 
 the expansion of Moliere's great sentence, 
 " II s'ensuit de la, que tout ce qu'il y a de 
 T3eau est dans les dictionnaires ; 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 everything; — even of 
 stones. By the way, you were all reading 
 about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the 
 other day ? 
 
 Sibyl. Because you had told us it was so 
 difficult, you thought it could not be as- 
 cended. 
 
 L. Yes ; I believed the Aiguille Verte 
 would have held its own. But do you rec- 
 ollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, 
 when he first felt sure of reaching the sum- 
 mit .? 
 
 Sibyl. Yes, it was, ''Oh, Aiguille Verte, 
 vous etes morte, vous etes morte ! " 
 
 L. That was true instinct. Real philo- 
 sophic joy. Now can you at all fancy the 
 
214 ^be :6tbiC6 of tbe ®u6t 
 
 difference between that feeling of triumph 
 in a mountain's death ; and the exultation 
 of your beloved poet, in its life — 
 
 •* Quantus Atbos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis. 
 Quum fremit ilicibus quantus, gaudetque nivali 
 Vertice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.'' 
 
 Dora. You must translate for us mere 
 housekeepers, please — whatever the cave- 
 keepers may know about it. 
 
 Mary. Will Dry den do ? 
 
 L. No. Dryden is a far Vv^ay worse than 
 nothing, and nobody will "do." You can't 
 translate it. But 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 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 them- 
 selves to it that they may please themselves 
 with passion ; for then they are no longer 
 
 i 
 
XTbe Crystal IReet 215 
 
 pure : but if, continually seeking and accept- 
 ing the truth as far as it is discernible, they 
 trust their Maker for the integrity of the in- 
 stincts He has gifted them with, and rest in 
 the sense of a higher truth which they can- 
 not demonstrate, I think they will be most 
 in the right, so. 
 
 Dora and Jessie {clapping iheir hands). 
 Then we really may believe that the mount- 
 ains are living? 
 
 L. You may at least earnestly believe 
 that the presence of the spirit which culmi- 
 nates in your own life, shows itself in dawn- 
 ing, wherever the dust of the earth begins 
 to assume any orderly and lovely state. 
 You will find it impossible to separate this 
 idea of graduated manifestation from that of 
 the vital power. Things are not either 
 wholly alive, or wholly dead. They are less 
 or more alive. Take the nearest, 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 ^^^^ than the calyx to the blos- 
 som. It bursts at last ; but it never lives 
 as the corolla does. It may fall at the mo- 
 ment its task is fulfilled, as in the poppy ; 
 or whether gradually, as in the buttercup \ 
 
2i6 ^bc iBtbicB ot tbc Dust* 
 
 or persist in a ligneous apathy, after the 
 flower is dead, as in the rose ; or harmonize 
 itself so as to share in the aspect of the real 
 flower, as in the lily ; but it never shares in 
 the corolla's bright passion of life. And the 
 gradations which thus exist between the 
 different members of organic creatures, exist 
 no less between the different ranges of or- 
 ganism. We know no higher or more en- 
 ergetic life than our own ; but there seems 
 to me this great good in the idea of grada- 
 tion of life — it admits the idea of a life above 
 us, in other creatures, as much nobler than 
 ours, as ours is nobler than that of the dust. 
 
 Mary. I am glad you have said that ; for 
 I know Violet and Lucilla and May want 
 to ask you something ; indeed, we all do ; 
 only you frightened Violet so about the ant- 
 hill, that she can't say a word ; and • May is 
 afraid of your teasing her too : but I know 
 they are wondering why you are always 
 telling them about heathen gods and god- 
 desses, as if you half believed in them ; 
 and you represent them as good ; and then 
 we see there is really a kind of truth in the 
 stories about them ; and we are all puzzled : 
 and, in this, we cannot even make our diffi- 
 culty quite clear to ourselves ; — it would be 
 such a long confused question, if we could 
 ask you all we should like to know. 
 
 L. Nor is it any wonder, Mary ; for this 
 is indeed the longest, and the most wildly 
 confused question that reason can deal with ; 
 
^be Cri20tal tRcBU 217 
 
 but I will try to give you, quickly, a few 
 clear ideas about the heathen gods, which 
 you may follow out afterwards, as your 
 knowledge increases. 
 
 Every heathen conception of deity, in 
 ivhich you are likely to be interested, has 
 three distinct characters : — 
 
 I. It has a physical character. It repre- 
 sents some of the great powers or objects 
 of nature — sun or moon, or heaven, or the 
 winds, or the sea. And the fables first re- 
 lated about each deity represent, figuratively, 
 the action or the natural power which it 
 represents ; such as the rising and setting of 
 the sun, the tides of the sea, and so on. 
 
 II. It has an ethical character, and repre- 
 sents, in its history, the moral dealings of 
 God with man. Thus Apollo is first, physi- 
 cally, the sun contending with darkness ; 
 but morally, the power of divine life^ con- 
 tending with corruption. Athena is, physi- 
 cally, the air ; morally, the breathing of the 
 divine spirit of wisdom. Neptune is, physi- 
 cally, the sea ; morally, the supreme power 
 of agitating passion ; and so on. 
 
 HI. It has, at last, a personal character ; 
 and is realized in the minds of its wor- 
 shipers as a living spirit, with whom men 
 may speak face to face, as a man speaks to 
 liis friend. 
 
 Now it is impossible to define exactly, 
 liow far, at any period of a national religion, 
 these three ideas are mingled : or how fax 
 
2i8 Cbc JStbice ot tbc Bust* 
 
 one prevails over the other. Each inquirer 
 usually takes up one of these ideas, and 
 pursues it, to the exclusion of the others ; 
 no impartial effort seems to have been made 
 to discern the real state of the heathen im- 
 agination in its successive phases. For the 
 question is not at all what a mythological 
 figure meant in its origin ; but what it be- 
 came in each subsequent mental develop- 
 ment of the nation inheriting the thought. 
 Exactly in proportion to the mental and 
 moral insight of any race, its mythological 
 figures mean more to it, and become more 
 real. An early cmd savage race means 
 nothing more (because it has nothing more 
 to mean) by its Apollo, than the sun ; while 
 a cultivated Greek means every operation 
 of divine intellect and justice. The Neith, 
 of Egypt, meant, physically, little more 
 than the blue of the air ; but the Greek, in 
 a cb'mate of alternate storm and calm, repre- 
 sented the wild fringes of the storm-cloud 
 by the serpents of her cegis ; and the light- 
 ning and cold of the highest thunder-clouds^ 
 by the Gorgon on her shield : while morally^ 
 the same types represented to him the mys- 
 tery and changeful terror of knowledge, as 
 her spear and helm its ruling and defensive 
 power. And no study can be more interest- 
 ing, or more useful to you, than that of the 
 different meanings which have been created 
 by great nations, and great poets, out of 
 mythological figures given them, at first, ia 
 
Zbc Crystal 1Re6t 219 
 
 utter simplicity. But when we approach 
 them in their third, or personal, character 
 (and, for its power over the whole national 
 mind, this is far the leading- one), we are 
 met at once by questions which may well 
 put all of you at pause. Were they idly 
 imag-ined to be real beings ? and did they sO' 
 usurp the place of the true God ? Or were- 
 they actually real beings, — evil spirits, — 
 leading men away from the true God ? Or 
 is it conceivable that they might have been 
 real beings, — good spirits, — entrusted with 
 some message from the true God ? These- 
 were the questions you wanted to ask ; were 
 they not, Lucilla.'^ 
 
 LuciLLA. Yes, indeed. 
 
 L. Well, Lucilla, the * answer will much, 
 depend upon the clearness of your faith in 
 the personality of the spirits which are de- 
 scribed in the book of your own religion ; 
 — their personality, observe, as distinguished 
 from merely symbolical visions. For in- 
 stance, when Jeremiah has the vision of the 
 seething pot with its mouth to the north, 
 you know that this which he sees is not a 
 real thing ; but merely a significant dream. 
 Also, when Zechariah sees the speckled 
 horses among the myrtle-trees in the bottom, 
 you still may suppose the vision symbolical ; 
 — you do not think of them as real spirits,. 
 like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. 
 But when you are told of' the four riders in 
 the Apocalypse, a distinct sense of person- 
 
:22o XTbe lEtbice ot tbc Dust. 
 
 ality begins to force itself upon you. And 
 though you might, in a duU temper, think 
 that (for one instance of all) the fourth rider 
 on the pale horse was merely a symbol of 
 the power of death, — in your stronger and 
 more earnest moods you will rather con- 
 ceive of him as a real and living angel. 
 And when you look back from the vision of 
 Ihe Apocalypse to the account of the de- 
 struction of the Egyptian first-born, and of 
 the army of Sennacherib, and again to 
 David's vision at the threshing floor of 
 Araunah, the idea of personality in this 
 death-angel becomes entirely defined, just as 
 in the appearance of the angels to Abraham, 
 JManoah, or Mary. 
 
 Now, when you have once consented to 
 Ihis idea of a personal spirit, must not the 
 question instantly follow : "Does this spirit 
 exercise its functions towards one race of 
 men only, or towards all men ? Was it an 
 angel of death to the Jew only, or to the 
 Gentile also ? " You find a certain Divine 
 agency made visible to a King of Israel, as 
 an armed angel, executing vengeance, of 
 which one special purpose was to lower his 
 k:ingly pride. You find another (or perhaps 
 the same) agency, made visible to a Chris- 
 tian prophet as an angel standing in the sun, 
 calling to the birds that fly under heaven to 
 come, that they may eat the flesh of kings. 
 Is there anything impious in the thought 
 that the same agency might have been ex- 
 
^be Crystal meet 22 r 
 
 pressed to a Greek king, or Greek seer, by 
 similar visions? — that this figure standing 
 in the sun, and armed with the sword, or 
 the bow (whose arrows were drunk with 
 blood), and exercising especially its power 
 in the humiliation of the proud, might, at 
 first, have been called only ^* Destroyer," 
 and afterwards, as the light, or sun, of jus- 
 tice, was recognized in the chastisement, 
 called also " Physician " or ''Healer''? If 
 you feel hesitation in admitting the possi- 
 bility of such a manifestation, I believe yoa 
 will find it is caused, partly indeed by such, 
 trivial things as the difference to your ear 
 between Greek and English terms ; but, far 
 more, by uncertainty in your own mind 
 respecting the nature and truth of the visions 
 spoken of in the Bible. Have any of you 
 intently examined the nature of your belief 
 in them ? You, for instance, Lucilla, who 
 think often, and seriously, of such things ? 
 
 Lucilla. No ; I never could tell what to 
 believe about them. I know they must be 
 true in some way or other; and I like read- 
 ing about them. 
 
 L. Yes ; and I like reading about them 
 too, Lucilla ; as I like reading other grand 
 poetry. But, surely, we ought both to- 
 do more than like it ? Will God be satis- 
 fied with us, think you, if we read His words, 
 merely for the sake of an entirely meaning- 
 less poetical sensation ? 
 
 Lucilla. But do not the people who give- 
 
222 ilbe JBtbice ot tbc 5)u6t. 
 
 themselves to seek out the meaning of these 
 things, often get very strange, and extra va- 
 grant? 
 
 L. IMore than that, Lucilla. They often 
 go mad. That abandonment of the mind to 
 rehgious theory, or contemplation, is the 
 very thing I have been pleading with you 
 against. I never said you should set your- 
 self to discover the meanings : but you * 
 should take careful pains to understand them, 
 so far as they are clear ; and you should 
 always accurately ascertain the state of your 
 mind about them. I want you never to read 
 merely for the pleasure of fancy ; still less as 
 a formal religious duty (else you might as 
 Avell take to repeating Paters at once ; for it 
 is surely wiser to repeat one thing we under- 
 stand, than read a thousand which we can- 
 not). Either, therefore, acknowledge the 
 passage to be, for the present, unintelligible 
 to you ; or else determine the sense in which 
 you at present receive them ; or, at all 
 events, the different senses between which 
 you clearly see that you must choose. 
 Make either your belief or your difficulty 
 definite ; but do not go on, all through your 
 life, believing nothing intelligently, and yet 
 supposing that your having read the words 
 of a divine book must give you the right to 
 despise every religion but your own. I as- 
 sure you, strange as it may seem, our scorn 
 of Greek tradition depends, not on our be- 
 lief, but our disbelief, of our own traditions. 
 
XL\)c Crystal V.csU 223 
 
 We have, as yet, no sufficient clue to the 
 meaning of either ; but you will always find 
 that, in proportion to the earnestness of our 
 own faith, its tendency to accept a spiritual 
 personality increases : and that the most 
 vital and beautiful Christian temper rests 
 joyfully in its conviction of the multitud- 
 inous ministry of living- angels, infinitely 
 Taried in rank and pov/cr. You all know 
 ■one expression of the purest and happiest 
 form of such faith, as it exists in modern 
 limes, in Richter s lovely illustrations of the 
 Lords Prayer. The real and living death- 
 angel, girt as a pilgrim for journey, and 
 softly crov/ned with fiowers, beckons at the 
 dying mother's door ; child angels sit talking 
 face to face with mortal children, among the 
 flowers ; — hold them by their little coats, 
 lest they fall on the stairs ; whisper dreams 
 of heaven to them, leaning over their pil- 
 lows ; carry the sound of the church bells 
 for them far through the air ; and even de- 
 scending lower in service, fill little cups 
 with honey, to hold out to the weary bee. 
 By the way, Lily, did you tell the other chil- 
 dren that story about your little sister, and 
 Alice, and the sea? 
 
 Lily. I told it to Alice, and to Miss Dora. 
 I don't think I did to anybody else. I 
 thought it wasn't worth. 
 
 L. We shall think it worth a great deal 
 now, Lily, if you will tell it us. How old 
 is Dotty, again ? I forget. 
 
22^ XLbc Mtbice ot tbc Dust 
 
 Lily. She is not quite three ; but she has 
 such odd Httle old ways, sometimes. 
 
 L. And she was very fond of AHce ? 
 
 Lily. Yes ; AHce was so good to her 
 always ! 
 
 L. And so when Alice went away ? 
 
 Lily. Oh, it was nothing, you know, ta 
 tell about ; only it was strange at the time.. 
 
 L. Well ; but I want you to tell it. 
 
 Lily. The morning after Alice had gone. 
 Dotty was very sad and restless when she 
 got up; and went about, looking into all the 
 corners, as if she could find Alice in them, 
 and at last she came to mc, and said, ''Is 
 Alie gone over the great sea ? " And I said, 
 '^ Yes, she is gone over the great deep sea, 
 but she will come back again some day.'' 
 Then Dotty looked round the room; and I 
 had just poured some water out into the 
 basin ; and Dotty ran to it, and got up on a 
 chair, and dashed her hands through the 
 water, again and again; and cried, *' Ch, 
 deep, deep sea ! send little Alie back to me.'^ 
 
 L. Isn't that pretty, children ? There's a 
 dear little heathen for you ! The whole 
 heart of Greek mythology is in that ; the idea 
 of a personal being in the elemental power ; 
 — of its being moved by prayer ; — and of its 
 presence everywhere, making the broken 
 diffusion of the element sacred. ' 
 
 Now, remember, the measure in which we 
 may permit ourselves to think of this trusted 
 and adored personality, in Greek, or in any 
 
Zbc Crystal "Rest. 225, 
 
 other, mythology, as conceivably a shadow 
 of truth, will depend on the degree in which, 
 we hold the Greeks, or other great nations, 
 equal, or inferior, in privilege and character, 
 to the Jews, or to ourselves. If we believe- 
 that the great Father would use the imagina- 
 tion of the Jew as an instrument by which 
 to exalt and lead him ; but the imagination of 
 the Greek only to degrade and mislead him : 
 if we can suppose that real angels were sent: 
 to minister to the Jews and to punish them ; 
 but no angels; or only mockinj^ spectra of 
 angels, or even devils in the shapes of an- 
 gels, to lead Lycurgus and Leonidas from 
 desolate cradle to hopeless grave : — and if* 
 we can think that it was only the influence 
 of specters, or the teaching of demons, 
 which issued in the making of mothers like* 
 Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, 
 we may, of course, reject the heathen My- 
 thology in our privileged scorn ; but, at least, 
 we are bound to examine strictly by what 
 faults of our own it has come to pass, that 
 the ministry of real angels among ourselves- 
 is occasionally so ineffectual as to end in the 
 production of Cornelias who entrust their 
 child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the bet- 
 ter keeping of them ; and of sons like that 
 one who, the other day, in France, beat his 
 mother to death with a stick ; and was 
 brought in by the jury, ''guilty, with ex- 
 tenuating circumstances." 
 May. Was that really possible. 
 
2 26 ^be iStbiCQ ot tbe Dust 
 
 L. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I 
 can lay my hand on the reference to it (and 
 I should not have said "the other day,'*' — 
 it was a year or two ago), but you may de- 
 pend on the fact ; and I could give you 
 many like it, if I chose. There was a 
 murder done in Russia, very lately, on a 
 traveler. The murderess's little daughter 
 was in the way, and found it out, somehow. 
 Her mother killed her, too, and put her into 
 the oven. There is a peculiar horror about 
 the relations between parent and child, 
 which are being now brought about by our 
 variously degraded forms of European white 
 slavery. Here ts one reference, I see, in 
 my notes on that story of Cleobis and Bito ; 
 though I suppose I marked this chiefly for 
 its quaintness and the beautifully Christian 
 names of the sons ; but it is a good instance 
 of the power of the King of the Valley of 
 Diamonds * among us. 
 
 In -'Galignani,'' of July 21-22, 1862, is 
 reported a trial of a farmer's son in the de- 
 partment of the Yonne. The father, two 
 years ago, at Malay le Grand, gave up his 
 property to his two sons, on condition of 
 being maintained by them. Simon fulfilled 
 his agreement, but Pierre would not. The 
 tribunal of Sens condemns Pierre to pay 
 eighty-four francs a year to his father. 
 Pierre replies, ' ' he would rather die than 
 
 * Note vi. 
 
V^hc Cri59tal IRcet 227 
 
 pay it/' Actually, returning home, he 
 throws himself into the river, and the body 
 is not found till next day. 
 
 Mary. But — but — I can't tell what you 
 would have us think. Do you seriously 
 mean that the Greeks were better than we 
 are ; and that their gods were real angels ? 
 
 L. No, my dear. I mean only that we 
 Icnow, in reality, less than nothing of the 
 dealings of our Maker with our fellow-men ; 
 and can only reason or conjecture safely 
 about them, when we have sincerely hum- 
 hle thoughts of ourselves and our creeds. 
 
 We owe to the Greeks every noble dis- 
 cipline in literature, every radical principle of 
 art ; and every form of convenient beauty 
 in our household furniture and daily occupa- 
 tions of life. We are unable, ourselves, to 
 make rational use of half that we have re- 
 ceived from them : and, of our own, we 
 have nothing but discoveries in science, and 
 fine mechanical adaptations of the discov- 
 ered physical powers. On the other hand, 
 the vice existing among certain classes, 
 both of the rich and poor, in London, Paris, 
 and Vienna, could have been conceived by a 
 Spartan or Roman of the heroic ages only 
 as possible in a Tartarus, where fiends were 
 -employed to teach, but not to punish, crime. 
 It little becomes us to speak contemptuously 
 of the religion of races to whom we stand in 
 ■such relations ; nor do I think any man of 
 modesty or thoughtfulness will ever speak 
 
2 28 Zbc JEtbice ot tbc Dust. 
 
 so of any religion, in which God has allowed 
 one good man to die, trusting. 
 
 The more readily we admit the possibility 
 of our own cherished convictions being 
 mixed with error, the more vital and helpful 
 whatever is right in them will become : and 
 no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea 
 that God will not allow us to err, though 
 He has allowed all other men to do so. 
 There may be doubt of the meaning of other 
 visions, but there is none respecting that of 
 the dream of St. Peter ; and you may trust 
 the Rock of the Church's Foundation for tvuor 
 interpreting, when he learned from it that, 
 ''in every nation, he that feareth God and 
 worketh righteousness, is accepted with 
 Him." See that you understand what that 
 righteousness means ; and set hand to it 
 stoutly : you will always measure your neigh- 
 bors' creed kindly, in proportion to the sub- 
 stantial fruits of your own. Do not think 
 you will ever get harm by striving to enter 
 into the faith of others, and to sympathize, 
 in imagination, with the guiding principles, 
 of their lives. So only can you justly love 
 them, or pity them, or praise. By the gra- 
 cious efforts you will double, treble — nay, in- 
 definitely multiply, at once the pleasure, the- 
 reverence, and the intelligence with which 
 you read : and, believe me, it is wiser and 
 holier, by the fire of your own faith, to kindle 
 the ashes of expired religions, than to let 
 your soul shiver and stumble among their 
 
Xlbc Cri26tal 1Rc6t 229^ 
 
 graves, through the gathering darkness, and 
 communicable cold. 
 
 Mary {ay/er some pause). We shall all 
 like reading Greek history so much better 
 after this ! but it has put everything else out 
 of our heads that we wanted to ask. 
 
 L. I can tell you one of the things ; and 
 I might take credit for generosity in telling 
 you : but I have a personal reason — Lucilla's 
 verse about the creation. 
 
 Dora. Oh, yes — yes; and its ''pain to- 
 gether, until now." 
 
 L. I call you back to that, because I must 
 warn you against an old error of my own. 
 Somewhere in the fourth volume of " Modern 
 Painters," I said that the earth seemed to 
 have passed through its highest state : and 
 that, after ascending by a series of phases, 
 culminating in its habitation by man, it 
 seems to be now gradually becoming less 
 fit for that habitation. 
 
 Mary. Yes, I remember. 
 
 L. I wrote those passages under a very 
 bitter impression of the gradual perishing of 
 beauty from the loveliest scenes which I 
 knew in the physical world ; — not in any 
 doubtful way, such as I might have attrib- 
 uted to loss of sensation in myself — but by 
 violent and definite physical action ; such 
 as the filling up of the Lac de Chede by 
 landslips from the Rochers des Fiz ; — the 
 narrowing of the Lake Lucerne by the gain- 
 ing delta of the stream of the Muotta-Thal, 
 
230 ^be J6tbtC6 ot tbe 1S>\xbU 
 
 which, in the course of years, will cut the 
 lake into two, as that of Brientz has been 
 divided from that of Thun ; — the steady- 
 diminishing of the glaciers north of the Alps, 
 and still more, of the sheets of snow on their 
 southern slopes, which supply the refreshing 
 streams of Lombardy : — the equally steady 
 increase of deadly maremma round Pisa and 
 Venice ; and other such phenomena, quite 
 measurably traceable within the limits even 
 of short life, and unaccompanied, as it 
 seemed, by redeeming or compensatory 
 agencies. I am still under the same impres- 
 sion respecting the existing phenomena ; 
 but I feel more strongly, every day, that no 
 evidence to be collected within historical 
 periods can be accepted as any clew to the 
 great tendencies of geological change ; but 
 that the great laws which never fail, and to 
 which all change is subordinate, appear 
 such as to accomplish a gradual advance to 
 lovelier order, and more calmly, yet more 
 deeply, animated Rest. Nor has this con- 
 viction ever fastened itself upon me more 
 distinctly, than during my endeavor to trace 
 the laws which govern the lowly framework 
 of the dust. For, through all the phases of 
 its transition and dissolution, there seems ta 
 be a continual effort to raise itself into a 
 higher state ; and a measured gain, through 
 the fierce revulsion and slow renewal of the 
 earth's frame, in beauty, and order, and per- 
 manence. The soft white sediments of the 
 
^be Crystal IRest 231 
 
 sea draw themselves, in process of time, 
 into smooth knots of sphered symmetry ; 
 burdened and strained under increase of 
 pressure, they pass into a nascent marble ; 
 scorched by fervent heat, they brighten and 
 blanch into the snowy rock of Paros and 
 Carrara. The dark drift of the inlapd river 
 or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, 
 divides, or resolves itself as it dries, into 
 layers of its several elements ; slowly puri- 
 fying each by the patient withdrawal of 
 it from the anarchy of the mass in which it 
 was mingled. Contracted by increasing- 
 drought, till it must shatter into fragments, 
 it infuses continually a finer ichor into the 
 opening veins, and finds in its weakness the- 
 first rudiments of a perfect strength. Rent 
 at last, rock from rock, nay, atom from 
 atom, and tormented in lambent fire, it 
 knits, through the fusion, the fibers of a per- 
 ennial endurance; and, during countless 
 subsequent centuries, declining, or, rather 
 let me say, rising, to repose, finishes the 
 infallible luster of its crystalline beauty, 
 under harmonies of law which are wholly 
 beneficent, because wholly inexorable. 
 
 i^The children seem pleased, but more in- 
 clined to think over these matters than 
 to talk.) 
 L. {after giving them a little time), Mary, I 
 seldom ask you to read anything out of 
 books of mine ; but there is a passage about 
 the Law of Help, which I want you to read 
 
232 Zbc Btbics ot tbe B\xbU 
 
 io the children now, because it is of no 
 use merely to put it in other words for 
 them. You know the place I mean, do not 
 you ? 
 
 IVIary. Yes {presently finding it) ; where 
 shall I begin'? 
 
 L. Here ; but the elder ones had better 
 look afterwards at the piece which comes 
 just before this. 
 
 Mary {reads) : 
 
 " A pure or holy state of anything is that in which 
 all its parts are helpful or consistent. The highest and 
 iirst law of the universe, and the other name of life, is 
 therefore ' help.' The other name of death is * separa- 
 tion.' Government and co-operation are in all things, 
 and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and competi- 
 tion, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death. 
 
 *' Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, ex- 
 ample we could take of the nature and power of con- 
 sistence, will be that of the possible changes in the 
 dust we tread on. 
 
 " Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at 
 a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud or 
 slime of a damp, over-trodden path, in the outskirts of 
 a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, 
 because that is mixed with animal refuse ; but take 
 merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a 
 beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing 
 town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed 
 of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with 
 soot, a little sand and water. All these elements are at 
 helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally 
 each other's nature and power : competing and fight- 
 ing for place at every tread of your foot ; sand squeez- 
 ing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot 
 meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole. Let us 
 suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, 
 and that its elements gather together, like to like, so 
 
XTbc Crystal IRcst* 233 
 
 that their atoms may get into the closest relations pos- 
 sible. 
 
 " Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign 
 substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already 
 very beautiful, and fit, with help of congealing fire, to 
 be made into finest porcelahi, and painted on, and be 
 ikept in kings' palaces. But such artificial consistence 
 is not its best. Leave it still quiet,* to follow its own 
 instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white, but 
 <:lear ; not only clear, but hard ; nor only clear and 
 hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonder-; 
 ful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays 
 only, refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire. 
 
 " Such being the consummation of the clay, we give 
 similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also be- 
 comes, first, a white earth ; then proceeds to grow clear 
 and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, in- 
 ^nitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of re- 
 flecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, 
 purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in which 
 they can be seen through any hard material whatso- 
 •ever. We call it then an opal. 
 
 " In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot 
 jnake itself white at first ; but, instead of being dis- 
 couraged, tries harder and harder; and comes out 
 clear at last ; and the hardest thing in the world ; and 
 for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the 
 power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in 
 the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We 
 call it then a diamond. 
 
 " Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself ; 
 contented enough if it only reach the form of a dew- 
 'drop : but if we insist on its proceeding to a more per- 
 fect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. 
 And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political 
 economy of competition, we have, by political economy 
 •of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, 
 ^et in the midst of a star of snow." 
 
 L. I have asked you to hear that, children, 
 (because, from all that we have seen in the 
 
234 ^t)e :etbics of tbe Dust* 
 
 work and play of these past days, I would 
 have you g-ain at least one grave and endur- 
 ing thought. The seeming trouble, — the 
 unquestionable degradation, — of the ele- 
 ments of the physical earth, must passively 
 wait the appointed time of their repose, or 
 their restoration. It can only be brought 
 about for them by the agency of external 
 law. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life 
 in us than in these strangely moving atoms ; 
 — if, indeed, there is an eternal difference 
 between the fire which inhabits them, and 
 that which animates us, — it must be shown, 
 by each of us in his appointed place, not 
 merely in the patience, but in the activity 
 of our hope ; not merely by our desire, but 
 our labor, for the time when the Dust of the 
 generations of men shall be confirmed for 
 foundations of the gates of the city of God. 
 The human clay, now trampled and de- 
 spised, will not be, — cannot be, — knit into 
 strength and light by accident or ordinances 
 of unassisted . fate. By human cruelty and 
 iniquity it has been afflicted ; — by human 
 mercy and justice it must be raised : and, in 
 all fear or questioning of what is or is not, 
 the real message of creation, or of revela- 
 tion, you may assuredly find perfect peace, 
 if you are resolved to do that which your 
 Lord has plainly required, — and content 
 that He should indeed require no more of 
 you, — than to do Justice, to love Mercy» 
 and to walk humbly with Him. 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 Page 32. 
 
 " That third pyramid of hers ^* 
 
 Throughout the dialogues, it must be observed 
 that " Sibyl " is addressed (when in play) as having: 
 once been the Cumaean Sibyl ; and " Egypt " as having, 
 been Queen Nitocris, — the Cinderella and " the greatest 
 heroine and beauty ' ' of Egyptian story. The Egyptians 
 called her " Neith the Victorious" (Nitocris), and the 
 Greeks " Face of the Rose" (Rhodope). Chaucer's 
 beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the " Legend of 
 Good Women," is much more founded on the tradi- 
 tions of her than on those of Cleopatra ; and, especially 
 in its close, modified by Herodotus' s terrible story of 
 the death of Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically 
 nothing more than a part of the deep monotonous 
 ancient dirge for the fulfillment of the earthly destiny 
 of Beauty : " She cast herself into a chamber full of 
 ashes." 
 
 I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained 
 to have either built, or increased to double its former 
 size, the third pyramid of Gizeh : and the passage 
 following in the text refers to an imaginary endeavor, 
 by the Old Lecturer and the children together, to make 
 out the description of that pyramid in the 167th page of 
 the second volume of Bunsen's " Egypt's Place in 
 Universal History" — ideal endeavor, — which ideally 
 
 237 
 
23S Botes* 
 
 terminates as the Old Lecturer's real endeavors to the 
 same end always have termmated. There are, how- 
 ever, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of 
 the same volume : but the " Early Egyptian History 
 for the Young," by the author of " Sidney Gray " con- 
 tains, in a pleasant form, as much information as young 
 readers will usually need. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Page 33. 
 
 " Pyramid of AsychisP 
 
 This pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower 
 of Babel the shame, or vainglory, of being presumptu- 
 ously, and first among great edifices, built with " brick 
 for stone." This was the inscription on it, according 
 to Herodotus : 
 
 " Despise me not, in comparing me with the 
 pyramids of stone; for I have the pre-eminence 
 over them, as far as Jupiter has pre-eminence over 
 the gods. For, striking with staves into the pool, 
 men gathered the clay which fastened itself to the 
 staff, and kneaded bricks out of it, and so made 
 
 The word I have translated " kneaded " is literally 
 ** drew ; " in the sense of drawing, for which the Latins 
 used " duco " ; and thus gave us our " ductile " in speak- 
 ing of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or leader, in speak- 
 ing of living clay. As the asserted pre-eminence of the 
 edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest merely on 
 the quantity of labor consumed in it, this pyramid is 
 considered, in the text, as the type, at once, of the base 
 building, and of the lost labor, of future ages, so far 
 at least as the spirits of measured and mechanical 
 effort deal with it ; but Neith, exercising her power 
 upon it, makes it a type of the work of wise and in- 
 .spired builders. 
 
tiotce. 239 
 
 Note III. 
 
 Page 34. 
 
 " T/ie Greater Pthahy 
 
 It is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness 
 the personal agencies of the Egyptian deities. They 
 are continually associated in function, or hold derivative 
 powers, or are related to each other in mysterious 
 triads ; uniting always symbolism of physical phenomena 
 with real spiritual power. I have endeavored partly 
 to explain this in the text of the tenth Lecture ; here, 
 it is only necessary for the reader to know that the 
 Greater Pthah more or le^s represents the formative 
 power of order and measurement : he ahvays stands 
 •on a four-square pedestal, " the Egyptian cubit, meta- 
 phorically used as the hieroglyphic for truth ; " his limbs 
 are bound together, to signify fixed stability, as of a 
 pillar; he has a measuring-rod in his hand; and at 
 Philcxi, is represented as holding an &ZZ ^^'^ ^ potter's 
 "vvheel ; but I do not know if this symbol occurs in 
 older sculptures. Ilis usual title is the " Eord of 
 Truth." Others, very beautiful : " King of the Two 
 AVorlds, of Gracious Countenance," "Superintendent 
 of the Great Abode," etc., are given by Mr. Birch in 
 Arundale's " Gallery of Antiquities," v/hich I suppose 
 is the book of best authority easily accessible. For 
 the full titles and utterance of the gods, Rosellini is 
 as yet the only — and, I believe, still a very questionable 
 — authority; Arundale's little book, excellent in the 
 text, has this great defect, that its drawings give the 
 statues invariably a ludicrous or ignoble character. 
 Readers who have not access to the originals must be 
 warned against this frequent fault in modern illustra- 
 tion (especially existing also in some of the painted 
 casts of Gothic and Norman work at the Crystal 
 Palace). It is not owing to any willful want of veracity r 
 the plates in Arundale's book are laboriously faithful : 
 but the expressions of both face and body in a figure 
 
240 lfi0tC6» 
 
 depend merely on emphasis of touch ; and, in barbaric 
 art, most draughtsmen emphasize what they plainljr 
 see — the barbarism ; and miss conditions of nobleness,, 
 which they must approach the monument in a different 
 temper before they will discover and draw with great 
 subtlety before they can express. 
 
 The character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I 
 ought rather to say, of Pthah in his lower ofiice, is suf- 
 ficiently explained in the text of the third Lecture ; 
 only the reader must be warned that the Egyptian 
 symbolism of him by the beetle was not a scornful 
 one ; it expressed only the idea of his presence in the- 
 first elements of life. But it may not unjustly be used, 
 in another sense, by us, who have seen his power m 
 new development ; and, even as it was, I cannot con- 
 ceive that the Egyptians should have regarded their 
 beetle-headed image of him (Champollion, " Pantheon," 
 pi. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the most pain- 
 ful of all their types of any beneficent power; and even 
 among those of evil influences, none can be compared 
 with it, except its opposite, the tortoise-headed demoa 
 of indolence. 
 
 Pasht (p. 33, line 5) is connected with the Greek 
 Artemis, especially in her offices of judgment and 
 vengeance. She is usually lioness-headed ; sometimes 
 cat-headed ; her attribute seeming often trivial or ludi- 
 crous unless their full meaning is known ; but the in- 
 quiry is much too wide to be followed here. The cat 
 was sacred to her; or rather to the sun, and secondarily 
 to her. She is alluded to in the text because she is al- 
 ways the companion of Pthah (called " the beloved of 
 Pthah," it may be as Judgment, demanded and longed 
 for by Truth) ; and it may be well for young readers to- 
 have this fixed in their minds, even by chance associa- 
 tion. There are more statues of Pasht in the British 
 Museum than of any other Egyptian deity; several of 
 them fine in workmanship; nearly all in dark stone, 
 which may be, presumably, to connect her, as the moon, 
 with the night ; and in her office of avenger, with 
 grief. 
 
 Thoth (p. 37, line 5) is the Recording Angel of 
 
Botes^ 241 
 
 Judgment ; and the Greek Hermes — Phre (line 9), is 
 the Sun. 
 
 Neith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom ; and 
 the Athena of the Greeks. No sufficient statement of 
 her many attributes, still less of their meanings, can be 
 shortly given ; but this should be noted respecting the 
 veiling of the Egyptian image of her by vulture wings 
 — that as she is, physically, the goddess of the air, this 
 bird, the most powerful creature of the air known to 
 the Egyptians, naturally became her symbol. It had 
 other significations ; but certainly this, when in connec- 
 tion with Neith. As representing her, it was the most 
 important sign, next to the winged sphere, in Egyptian 
 sculpture ; and, just as in Homer, Athena herself guides 
 her heroes into battle, this symbol of wisdom, giving^ 
 victory, floats over the heads of the Egyptian Kings. 
 The Greeks, representing the goddess herself in human 
 form, yet would not lose the power of the Egyptian 
 symbol, and changed it into an angel of victory. First 
 seen in loveliness on the early coins of Syracuse and. 
 Leontium, it gradually became the received sign of all 
 conquest, and the so-called " Victory " of later times; 
 which, little by Httle, loses its truth, and is accepted by 
 the moderns only as a personification of victory itself, 
 — not as an actual picture of the living Angel who led 
 to victory. There is a wide difference between these 
 two conceptions, — all the difference between insincere 
 poetry, and sincere religion. This I have also en- 
 deavored farther to illustrate in the tenthLecture ; there 
 is, however, one part of Athena's character which it. 
 would have been irrelevant to dwell upon there ; yet 
 which I must not wholly leave unnoticed. 
 
 As the goddess of the air, she physically represents- 
 both its beneficent calm, and necessary tempest : other 
 storm-deities (as Chrysaor and ^olus) being invested 
 with a subordinate and more or less malignant function,, 
 which is exclusively their own, and is related to that of 
 Athena as the power of Mars is related to hers in war. 
 So also Virgil makes her able to wield the lightning 
 herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the inter- 
 vention of ^olus. She has precisely the correspondent 
 
 16 
 
242 Botes* 
 
 moral authority over calmness of mind, and just anger. 
 She soothes Achilles, as she incites Tydides ; her phys- 
 ical power over the air being always hinted correlatively. 
 She grasps Achilles by his hair — as the wind would lift 
 it — softly, 
 
 ** It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair, 
 Like a meadow gale in spring." 
 
 She does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Dio- 
 med ; but seizes it in both her hands, and casts it aside, 
 with a sense of making it vain, like chaff in the wind; 
 — to the shout of Achilles, she adds her own voice of 
 storm in heaven — but in all cases the moral power is 
 still the principal one — most beautifully in that seizing 
 of Achilles by the hair, which was the talisman of his 
 life (because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he re- 
 turned in safety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' 
 tomb, he, knowingly, yields up the hope of return to his 
 •country, and signifies that he will die with his friend. 
 Achilles and Tydides are, above all other heroes, aided 
 by her in war, because their prevailing characters are 
 the desire of justice, united in both, with deep affec- 
 tions ; and, in Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, 
 •which is the real root of his passionate anger. Ulysses 
 IS her favorite chiefly in her ofi&ce as the goddess of 
 ■conduct and design. 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 Page 82. 
 
 " Geometrical limitations!''' 
 
 It is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without 
 ■full illustration, to express the complete relations of 
 crystallincrstructure,^ which dispose minerals to take, at 
 different times, fibrous, massive, or foliated forms ; and 
 I am afraid this chapter will be generally skipped by 
 the reader : yet the arrangement itself will be found 
 iisef ul, if kept broadly in mind ; and the transitions of 
 
tiOtCB. 243. 
 
 Btate are of the highest interest, if the subject is entered 
 upon with any earnestness. It would have been vain 
 to add to the scheme of this little volume any account 
 of the geometrical forms of crystals : an available one^ 
 though still far too difficult and too copious, has been 
 arranged by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, for Orr's " Circle of 
 the Sciences"; and, I believe, the "nets" of crystals, 
 which are therein given to be cut out with scissors and 
 put prettily together, will be found more conquerable 
 by young ladies than by other students. They should 
 also, when an opportunity occurs, be shown, at any^ 
 public library, the diagram of the crystallization of 
 quartz referred to poles, at p. 8 of Cloizaux's " Manuel 
 de Mineralogie " ; that they may know what work is ; 
 and what the subject is. 
 
 With a view to more careful examination of the nas- 
 cent states of silica, 1 have made no allusion in this vol- 
 ume to the influence of mere segregation, as connected 
 with the crystalline power. It has only been recently, 
 during the study of the breccias alluded to in page 186 
 that I have fully seen the extent to which this singular 
 force often modifies rocks in which at first its influence 
 might hardly have been suspected ; many apparent 
 conglomerates being in reality formed chiefly by segre- 
 gation, combined with mysterious brokenly-zoned struct- 
 ures, like those of some malachites. I hope some da^ 
 to know more of these and several other mineral pheno- 
 mena (especially of those connected with the relative 
 sizes of crystals), which otherwise I should have en.- 
 deavored to describe in this volume. 
 
 Note V. 
 
 Page 168. 
 
 ''St. Barbara:'' 
 
 I WOULD have given the legends of St. Barbara, and 
 St. Thomas, if I had thought it always well for young 
 readers to have everything at once told them which 
 
244 *O^OtC0» 
 
 they may wish to know. They will remember the 
 stories better after taking some trouble to find them ; 
 and the text is intelligible enough as it stands. The 
 idea of St. Barbara, as there given, is founded partly 
 on her legend in Peter de Natalibus, partly on the 
 beautiful photograph of Van Eyck's picture of her at 
 Antwerp : which was some time since published at Lille. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 Page 226. 
 
 *'' King of the Valley of Diamonds ^^ 
 
 Isabel interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly 
 bid to hold her tongue ; which gave rise to some talk, 
 apart, afterwards, between L. and Sibyl, of which a 
 word or two may be perhaps advisably set down. 
 
 Sibyl. We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if we don't 
 mind ; I was glad you stopped her, and yet sorry; for 
 she wanted so much to ask about the Valley of Dia- 
 monds again, and she has worked so hard at it, and 
 made it nearly all out by herself. She recollected 
 Elisha's throwing in the meal, which nobody else 
 did. 
 
 L. But what did she want to ask ? 
 
 Sibyl. About the mulberry trees and the serpents; 
 we are all stopped by that. Won't you tell us what it 
 means ? 
 
 L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained 
 jourself, should be the last to expect others to do so. 
 1 hate explaining myself. 
 
 Sibyl. And yet how often you complain of other 
 people for not saying what they meant. Plow I have 
 heard you growl over the three stone steps to purga- 
 tory : for instance ! 
 
 L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting 
 at ; but mine matters nothing ; at least, if ever I think 
 it is of any consequence, I speak it as clearly as may 
 ibe. But you may make anything you like of the ser' 
 
IRotee. 245 
 
 pent forests. I could have helped you to find out what 
 they were, by giving a little more detail, but it would 
 have been tiresome. 
 
 Sibyl. It is much more tiresome not to find out. 
 Tell us, please, as Isabel says, because we feel so 
 stupid. 
 
 L. There is no stupidity ; you could not possibly do 
 more than guess at anything so vague. But I think, 
 you, Sibyl, at least, m.ight have recollected what first 
 •dyed the mulberry .-^ 
 
 Sibyl. So I did; but that helped little ; I thought of 
 Dante's forest of suicides, too, but you would not simply 
 have borrowed that ? 
 
 L. No. If I had had strength to use it, I should 
 have stolen it, to beat into another shape ; not borrowed 
 it. But that idea of souls in trees is as old as the 
 world ; or at least as the world of man. And I did 
 mean that there were souls in those dark branches ; — 
 the souls of all those who had perished in misery 
 through the pursuit of riches, and that the river was 
 of their blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of 
 the valley. Then I meant the serpents for the souls of 
 those who had lived carelessly and wantonly in their 
 riches ; and who had all their sins forgiven by the 
 world, because they are rich : and therefore they have 
 seven crimson-crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; 
 of which they are proud : and these, and the memory 
 and report of them, are the chief causes of temptation 
 to others, as showing the pleasantness and absolving 
 ■nower of riches ; so that thus they are singing serpents. 
 Vnd the worms are the souls of' the common money- 
 fetters and trafiickers, who do nothing but eat and 
 pin : and who gain habitually by the distress or fool- 
 shness of others (as you see the butchers have been 
 gaining out of the panic at the cattle plague, among 
 he poor), — so they are made to eat the dark leaves, 
 md spin, and perish. 
 
 Sibyl. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people 
 ;vho oppress the poor, and lend money to government 
 :o make unjust war, where are they? 
 L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit 
 
246 flotes* 
 
 with the gold; and make the grave-dust of the valley;, 
 I believe so, at least, for no one ever sees those souls 
 anywhere. 
 
 (SmYl. ceases questioning.) 
 
 Isabel {who has crept up to her side without any one 
 seeing). Oh, Sibyl, please ask him about the fire- 
 flies ! 
 
 L. What, you there, mousie ! No; I won't tell 
 either Sibyl or you about the fireflies ; nor a word more 
 about anything else. You ought to be little fireflies 
 yourselves, and find your way in twilight by your own 
 wits. 
 
 Isabel. But you said they burned, you know t 
 
 L. Yes ; and you may be fireflies that way too, some 
 of you, before long, though I did not mean that. 
 Away with you, children. You have thought enough 
 for to-day. 
 
 NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Sentence out of letter from May (who is staying with 
 Isabel just now at Cassel), dated 15th June, 1877 • — 
 
 " I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl wha 
 is staying here, and she's just as puzzled as I've always 
 been about the fireflies, and we both want to know sa 
 much. — Please be a very nice old Lecturer, and tell us^ 
 won't you ? " 
 
 Well, May, you never were a vain girl ; so could 
 scarcely guess that I meant them for the light, unpur- 
 sued vanities, which yet blind us, confused among the 
 stars. One evening, as I came late into Siena, the fire- 
 flies were flying high on a stormy sirocco wind, — the 
 stars themselves no brighter, and all their host seem" 
 ing, at moments, to fade as the insects faded. «y. 
 
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