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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ethics of the Dust, by John Ruskin
+#3 in our series by John Ruskin
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+Title: The Ethics of the Dust
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4701]
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+
+THE ETHICS OF THE DUST
+
+TEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES
+
+ON THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION
+
+BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,
+
+HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+
+TO THE REAL LITTLE HOUSEWIVES, WHOSE GENTLE LISTENING AND
+THOUGHTFUL QUESTIONING ENABLED THE WRITER TO WRITE THIS BOOK, IT
+IS DEDICATED WITH HIS LOVE.
+
+CHRISTMAS, 1875.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+LECTURE
+
+   I. THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS
+  II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS
+ III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE
+  IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS
+   V. CRYSTAL VIRTUES
+  VI. CRYSTAL QUARRELS
+ VII. HOME VIRTUES
+VIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE
+  IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS
+   X. THE CRYSTAL REST
+      NOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+PERSONAE
+
+
+OLD LECTURER (of incalculable age).
+
+FLORRIE,
+   on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9.
+
+ISABEL ..................................... "  11.
+
+MAY ........................................ "  11.
+
+LILY ....................................... "  12.
+
+KATHLEEN.................................... "  14.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
+
+
+I have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best
+pains given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my
+publisher, after the opinion of the public had been taken on the
+"Ethics of the Dust," that I would "write no more in dialogue!"
+However, I bowed to public judgment in this matter at once
+(knowing also my inventive powers to be of the feeblest); but in
+reprinting the book (at the prevailing request of my kind friend,
+Mr. Henry Willett), I would pray the readers whom it may at first
+offend by its disconnected method, to examine, nevertheless, with
+care, the passages in which the principal speaker sums the
+conclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were written as
+introductions, for young people, to all that I have said on the
+same matters in my larger books; and, on re-reading them, they
+satisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally
+useful, than anything else I have done of the kind.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
+
+
+The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may
+at least earnestly believe," at p. 215, is thus the clearest
+exposition I have ever yet given of the general conditions under
+which the Personal Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of
+matter; and the analysis of heathen conceptions of Deity,
+beginning at p. 217, and closing at p. 229, not only prefaces, but
+very nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms I have
+since asserted, or pleaded for, in "Aratra Pentelici," and the
+"Queen of the Air."
+
+And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting
+new occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it
+worth reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted "Unto this
+Last,"--page for page; that the students of my more advanced works
+may be able to refer to these as the original documents of them;
+of which the most essential in this book are these following.
+
+I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of
+the Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle-gospel, p. 59, "that a
+nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues,"
+explains the main motive of all my books on Political Economy.
+
+II. The examination of the connection between stupidity and crime,
+pp. 87-96, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors
+Clavigera against the commonly alleged excuse for public
+wickedness,--"They don't mean it--they don't know any better."
+
+III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 145-149, is
+a summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my
+inaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals;
+compare in that lecture, sections 83-85, with the sentence in p.
+147 of this book, "Nothing is ever done so as really to please our
+Father, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no
+Father to know of it."
+
+This sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the
+general conditions of action in the children of God, in
+consequence of which it is foretold of them by Christ that they
+will say at the Judgment, "When saw we thee?" It does not refer to
+the distinct cases in which virtue consists in faith given to
+command, appearing to foolish human judgment inconsistent with the
+Moral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to those in which any
+directly-given command requires nothing more of virtue than
+obedience.
+
+IV. The subsequent pages, 149-158, were written especially to
+check the dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable
+young women, in the direction of narrow and selfish religious
+sentiment: and they contain, therefore, nearly everything which I
+believe it necessary that young people should be made to observe,
+respecting the errors of monastic life. But they in nowise enter
+on the reverse, or favorable side: of which indeed I did not, and
+as yet do not, feel myself able to speak with any decisiveness;
+the evidence on that side, as stated in the text, having "never
+yet been dispassionately examined."
+
+V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 96, is, to my own
+fancy, the best bit of conversation in the book; and the issue of
+it, at p. 103, the most practically and immediately useful. For on
+the idea of the inevitable weakness and corruption of human
+nature, has logically followed, in our daily life, the horrible
+creed of modern "Social science," that all social action must be
+scientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on the habit of
+measuring and reverencing our powers and talents that we may
+kindly use them, will be founded a true Social science,
+developing, by the employment of them, all the real powers and
+honorable feelings of the race.
+
+VI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures,
+of the real nature and marvelousness of the laws of
+crystallization, is necessary to the understanding of what farther
+teaching of the beauty of inorganic form I may be able to give,
+either in "Deucalion," or in my "Elements of Drawing." I wish
+however that the second lecture had been made the beginning of the
+book; and would fain now cancel the first altogether, which I
+perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant for a
+metaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the
+kingdom of Mammon, or of worldly wealth; its waters mixed with
+blood, its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous
+when gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within
+frozen walls of cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and
+ineffective throughout; and I retain this chapter only because I
+am resolved to leave no room for any one to say that I have
+withdrawn, as erroneous in principle, so much as a single sentence
+of any of my books written since 1860.
+
+One license taken in this book, however, though often permitted to
+essay-writers for the relief of their dullness, I never mean to
+take more,--the relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream,
+pp. 27 and 171. I assumed, it is true, that in these places the
+supposed dream would be easily seen to be an invention; but must
+not any more, even under so transparent disguise, pretend to any
+share in the real powers of Vision possessed by great poets and
+true painters.
+
+BRANTWOOD:
+
+10th October, 1877.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The following lectures were really given, in substance, at a
+girls' school (far in the country); which, in the course of
+various experiments on the possibility of introducing some better
+practice of drawing into the modern scheme of female education, I
+visited frequently enough to enable the children to regard me as a
+friend. The Lectures always fell more or less into the form of
+fragmentary answers to questions; and they are allowed to retain
+that form, as, on the whole, likely to be more interesting than
+the symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many children (for the
+school was large) took part, at different times, in the
+conversations; but I have endeavored, without confusedly
+multiplying the number of imaginary speakers, to represent, as far
+as I could, the general tone of comment and inquiry among young
+people.
+
+[Footnote: I do not mean, in saying "imaginary," that I have not
+permitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate
+discourtesy of some reminiscence of personal character; for which
+I must hope to be forgiven by my old pupils and their friends, as
+I could not otherwise have written the book at all. But only two
+sentences in all the dialogues, and the anecdote of "Dotty," are
+literally "historical."]
+
+It will be at once seen that these Lectures were not intended for
+an introduction to mineralogy. Their purpose was merely to awaken
+in the minds of young girls, who were ready to work earnestly and
+systematically, a vital interest in the subject of their study. No
+science can be learned in play; but it is often possible, in play,
+to bring good fruit out of past labor, or show sufficient reasons
+for the labor of the future.
+
+The narrowness of this aim does not, indeed, justify the absence
+of all reference to many important principles of structure, and
+many of the most interesting orders of minerals; but I felt it
+impossible to go far into detail without illustrations; and if
+readers find this book useful, I may, perhaps, endeavor to
+supplement it by illustrated notes of the more interesting
+phenomena in separate groups of familiar minerals;--flints of the
+chalk;--agates of the basalts;--and the fantastic and exquisitely
+beautiful varieties of the vein-ores of the two commonest metals,
+lead and iron. But I have always found that the less we speak of
+our intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them;
+and this poor little book will sufficiently have done its work,
+for the present, if it engages any of its young readers in study
+which may enable them to despise it for its shortcomings.
+
+DENMARK HILL: Christmas, 1865.
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 1.
+
+THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS
+
+
+A very idle talk, 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 from behind L.'s sofa-cushion).
+Quite sure. (Disappears again.)
+
+L. I think I could be made to feel surer about it.
+
+(FLORRIE reappears, gives L. a kiss, and again 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 so 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 serpents.
+
+ISABEL. Oh, but suppose that they had minded me?
+
+L. We all of us mind you a little too much, Isabel, I'm afraid.
+
+ISABEL. No--no--no, indeed.
+
+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 who really goes into the valley
+is ever frightened at them--they are so beautiful.
+
+ISABEL (suddenly 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 Sindbad's. In his valley, there was only a diamond
+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! not with diamonds strewed about it like dew?
+
+L. That's according to your fancy, Florrie. 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--(hesitates for a delicate expression of magnitude).
+
+L. (rudely taking the first that comes). Because I'm 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, quoting 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"?
+
+ISABEL. Because--because we like to know about real things; and
+you can tell us, and we can't ask the man who wrote the stories.
+
+L. What do you call real things?
+
+ISABEL. Now, you know! Things that really 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, you know, if there were a
+real Valley of Diamonds, somebody MUST have seen it.
+
+L. You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel. Many people go to real
+places, and never see them; and many people pass through this
+valley, and never see it.
+
+FLORRIE. What stupid people they must be!
+
+L. No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the people who do see it.
+
+MAY. I think I know where it is.
+
+ISABEL. Tell us more about it, and then we'll guess.
+
+L. Well. There's a great broad road, by a river-side, leading up
+into it.
+
+MAY (gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last word). Does the
+road really go UP?
+
+L. You think it should go down into a valley? No, it goes up; this
+is a valley among the hills, and it is as high as the clouds, and
+is often full of them; so that even the people who most want to
+see it, cannot, always.
+
+ISABEL. And what is the river beside the road like?
+
+L. It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows over diamond
+sand--only the water is thick and red.
+
+ISABEL. Red water?
+
+L. It isn't all water.
+
+MAY. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just now; I want to hear
+about the 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 water-melons, and look ever so nice; and
+the people of the place make a red pottage 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; and nothing
+ever washes it out again. And it is their juice, soaking through
+the grass, which makes the river so red, because all its springs
+are in this wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as 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.
+
+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 forests 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 always higher and higher, till the gold is all
+split asunder by wedges of ice; and glaciers, welded, half of ice
+seven times frozen, and half of gold seven times frozen, hang down
+from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters,
+like the Cretan arrowheads; and into a mixed dust of snow and
+gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able to
+lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a
+burial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of
+golden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one,
+and are buried there:--yet, over the drifted graves, those who are
+spared climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path;--for
+at the end of it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his
+throne: and beside him (but it is only a false vision), spectra of
+creatures like themselves, 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." [Footnote: Dante, Inf. 7, I.]
+
+SIBYL. But do they all perish there? You said there was a way
+through the valley, and out of it.
+
+L. Yes; but few find it. If any of them keep to the grass paths,
+where the diamonds are swept aside; and hold their hands over
+their eyes so as not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward
+gradually to a place where one sees a little opening in the golden
+rocks. You were at Chamouni last year, Sibyl; did your guide
+chance to show you the pierced rock of the Aiguille du Midi?
+
+SIBYL. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva on Monday night; and
+it rained all Tuesday; and we had to be back at Geneva again,
+early on 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 flit 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 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.
+(Race 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?
+
+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 see these two white
+beads, which shine, as if they had been covered with grease?
+
+FLORRIE. May I touch them?
+
+L. Yes; you will find they are not greasy, only very smooth. Well,
+those are the fatal jewels; native here in their dust with gold,
+so that you may see, cradled here together, the two great enemies
+of 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 to 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,
+merchants, and men of luxurious life. Every other temptation is at
+last concentrated into this: pride, and lust, and envy, and anger
+all give up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole world
+is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve their
+Christ; but they sell Him.
+
+SIBYL. But surely that is the fault of human nature? it is not
+caused by the accident, as it were, of there being a pretty metal,
+like gold, to be found by digging. If people could not find that,
+would they not find something else, and quarrel for it instead?
+
+L. No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a
+time, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions,
+the national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not
+natural to man--generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by
+a special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma; and the
+essential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness
+is, that it shall be a beautiful thing which can be retained
+without a use. The moment we can use our possessions to any good
+purpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating 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 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 earthquake and pestilence
+is to slay us, like moths; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live
+out of their way. So, the practical, immediate office of gold and
+diamonds is the multiplied destruction of souls (in whatever sense
+you have been taught to understand that phrase); and the paralysis
+of wholesome human effort and thought on the face of God's earth:
+and a wise nation will live out of the 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 to their thoughts for a little
+while.) Then, also, we poor mineralogists might sometimes have the
+chance of seeing a fine crystal of diamond unhacked 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?
+
+L. In very small black crystals, yes; but no one knows how they
+are formed where they are found; or if indeed they are formed
+there at all. These, in my hand, look as if they had been swept
+down with the gravel and gold; only we can trace the gravel and
+gold to their native rocks, but not the diamonds. Read the account
+given of the diamond in any good work on mineralogy;--you will
+find nothing but lists of localities of gravel, or conglomerate
+rock (which is only an old indurated gravel). Some say it was once
+a vegetable gum; 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 same, then?
+
+L. There is a little iron mixed with our black lead; but nothing
+to hinder its crystallization. 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!
+
+SYBIL. Yes, we are; but we want to know, for all that.
+
+L. My dear, it would take a week to tell you.
+
+SIBYL. Well, take it, and tell us.
+
+L. But nobody knows anything about it.
+
+SIBYL. Then tell us something that nobody knows.
+
+L. Get along with you, and tell Dora to make tea.
+
+(The house rises; but of course the LECTURER wanted to be forced
+to lecture again, and was.)
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 2.
+
+THE PYRAMID BUILDERS
+
+
+In the large 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 some reference to sugar-candy.
+
+(Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of
+council. ISABEL 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 ready:--besides some discussion
+about places--something about "it's not being fair that the little
+ones should always be nearest?" 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, whenever they get disordered: they get into order again as
+soon as may be.
+
+I hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, "But we know
+our places; how do the atoms know theirs? And sometimes we dispute
+about our places; do the atoms--(and, besides, we don't like being
+compared to atoms at all)--never dispute about theirs?" Two wise
+questions these, if you had a mind to put them! it was long before
+I asked them myself, of myself. And I will not call you atoms any
+more. May I call you--let me see--"primary molecules?" (General
+dissent indicated in subdued but decisive murmurs.) No! not even,
+in familiar Saxon, "dust"?
+
+(Pause, with expression on faces of sorrowful 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 calling
+yourselves that. You are something better than dust, and have
+other duties to do than ever dust can do; and the bonds of
+affection you will enter into are better than merely "getting in
+to 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 permission to do as it likes,
+that IT ever gets out of order; but sometimes, with some of us,
+the compulsion has to be the other way--hasn't it? (Remonstratory
+whispers, expressive of opinion that the LECTURER is becoming 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 carts at random. You
+would have to draw a great many plans, and count all your bricks,
+and be sure you had enough for this and that tower, before you
+began, and then you would have to lay your foundation, 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 tap
+the heap of them with her wand, and say, "Bricks, bricks, to your
+places!" and then you saw in an instant the whole heap rise in the
+air, like a swarm of red bees, and--you have been used to see bees
+make a honeycomb, and to think that strange enough, but now you
+would see the honeycomb make itself!--You want to ask something,
+Florrie, by the look of your eyes.
+
+FLORRIE. Are they turned into real bees, with stings?
+
+L. No, Florrie; you are only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw
+the slates flying from the roof the other day in the storm; only
+those slates didn't seem to know where they were going, and,
+besides, were going where they had no business: but my spell-bound
+bricks, though they have no wings, and what is worse, no heads and
+no eyes, yet find their 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 build the crystals?
+
+L. There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds much more than
+crystals; but she builds these also. I dreamed that I saw her
+building a pyramid, the other day, as she used to do, for the
+Pharaohs.
+
+ISABEL. But that was only a dream?
+
+L. Some dreams are truer than some wakings, Isabel; but I won't
+tell it you unless you like.
+
+ISABEL. Oh, please, please.
+
+L. You are all such wise children, there's no talking to you; you
+won't believe anything.
+
+LILY. No, we are not wise, and we will believe anything, when you
+say we ought.
+
+L. Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you recollect that
+evening when we had been looking at your old cave by 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.
+
+SIBYL. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out after all!
+
+L. Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubling that third pyramid
+of hers; [Footnote: Note i.] 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 further. 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,[Footnote: Note iii] and it would
+have eaten you. I was very glad you were not there. But after all
+this, I suppose the imagination of the heavy granite blocks and
+the underground ways had troubled me, and dreams are often shaped
+in a strange opposition to the impressions that have caused them;
+and from all that we had been reading in Bunsen about stones that
+couldn't be lifted with levers, I began to dream about stones that
+lifted themselves with wings.
+
+SIBYL. Now you must just tell us all about it.
+
+L. I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose
+clay the bricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis.
+[Footnote: Note ii] They had just been all finished, and were
+lying by the lake margin, in long ridges, like waves. It was near
+evening; and as I looked towards the sunset, I saw a thing like a
+dark pillar standing where the rock of the desert stoops to the
+Nile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, and wondered
+at it; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like the
+form of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided,
+like a pillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance
+past it, towards the sun; and saw a silver cloud, which was of all
+the clouds closest to the sun (and in one place crossed it), draw
+itself back from the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot
+towards the dark pillar; leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of
+a bow. And I thought it was lightning; but when it came near the
+shadowy pillar, it sank slowly down beside it, and changed into
+the shape of a woman, very beautiful, and with a strength of deep
+calm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feet with a white
+robe; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which I had seen
+across the sun; but all the golden ripples of it had become
+plumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of
+a vulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a
+weaver's shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it,
+and in her left hand, arrows, tipped with fire.
+
+ISABEL (clapping her hands). Oh! it was Neith, it was Neith! I
+know now.
+
+L. Yes; it was Neith herself; and as the two great spirits came
+nearer to me, I saw they were the Brother and Sister--the pillared
+shadow was the Greater Pthah.[Footnote: Note iii] 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 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 porphyry, nor marble, nor any
+fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon.
+And she blamed her brother, and said, "Oh, Lord of truth! is this
+then thy will, that men should mold only foursquare 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 foursquare; 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 forever."
+
+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?"
+
+But Pthah only answered, "Let them build, sister, let them build."
+
+And Neith answered, "What shall they build, if I build not with
+them?"
+
+And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw
+suddenly, drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of
+vaults, and domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers,
+greater than obelisks, covered with black clouds. And the wind
+blew ripples of sand amidst the lines that Pthah drew, and the
+moving sand was like the marching of men. But I saw that wherever
+Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were effaced.
+
+"Oh, Brother!" she said at last, "what is this vanity? If I, who
+am Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst
+thou mock them, who art Lord of truth?" But Pthah answered, "They
+thought to bind me; and they shall be bound. They shall 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 suddenly.
+
+She looked to the sun; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the
+desert. Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that
+lay, each with its blue shadow, by the lake shore.
+
+"Brother," she said, "how long will this pyramid of thine be in
+building?"
+
+"Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before
+the summit is laid."
+
+"Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy children to 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 gathered in her eyes. And she took one
+of the flaming arrows out of the sheaf in her left hand, and
+stretched it out over the heaps of clay. And they rose up like
+flights of locusts, and spread themselves in the air, so that it
+grew dark in a moment. Then Neith designed them places with her
+arrow point; and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid level
+at morning. Then Neith pointed with her arrow to the north, and to
+the south, and to the east, and to the west, and the flying motes
+of earth drew asunder into four great ranked crowds; and stood,
+one in the north, and one in the south, and one in the east, and
+one in the west--one against another. Then Neith spread her wings
+wide for an instant, and closed them with a sound 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, like sea-birds settling to a
+level rock, and when they met, there was a sudden flame, as broad
+as the pyramid, and as high as the clouds; and it dazzled me; and
+I closed my eyes for an instant; and when I looked again, the
+pyramid stood on its rock, perfect; and purple with the light from
+the edge of the sinking sun.
+
+THE YOUNGER CHILDREN (variously pleased). I'm so glad! How nice!
+But what did Pthah say?
+
+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?
+
+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 terrible.
+
+EGYPT. I used to feel that, when I was queen: sometimes I had to
+carve gods, for company, all over my palace. I would fain have
+seen real ones, if I could.
+
+L. But listen a moment yet, for that was not quite all my dream.
+The twilight drew swiftly to the dark, and I could hardly see the
+great pyramid; when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the air;
+and a horned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on the sand at my
+feet, with a blow like the beat of a hammer. Then it stood up on
+its hind claws, and waved its pincers at me: and its fore claws
+became strong arms, and hands; one grasping real iron pincers, and
+the other a huge hammer; and it had a helmet on its head, without
+any eyelet holes, that I could see. And its two hind claws became
+strong crooked legs, with feet bent inwards. And so there stood 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 strengthen the weak; and everything that is
+great I can make small, and everything that is little I can make
+great." Then he turned to the angle of the pyramid and limped
+towards it. And the pyramid grew deep purple; and then red like
+blood, and then pale rose-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-glass,--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 burn." So I touched
+it, and took it into my own hand; and it was cold; only red, like
+a ruby. And Pthah laughed, and became like a beetle again, 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 of rose Fluor.)
+
+(Confused examination by crowded audience, over each other's
+shoulders and under each other's arms. Disappointment 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?
+
+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 incomprehensible. 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?
+
+L. What _I_ mean, is of little consequence. What the Egyptians
+meant, who called her "Neith,"--or Homer, who called her
+"Athena,"--or Solomon, who called her by a word which the Greeks
+render as "Sophia," you must judge for yourselves. But her
+testimony is always the same, and all nations have received it: "I
+was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His
+delight; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my
+delights were with the sons of men."
+
+MARY. But is not that only a personification?
+
+L. If it be, what will you gain by unpersonifying it, or what
+right have you to do so? 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"?
+
+(They 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
+
+
+A very dull Lecture, willfully brought upon themselves by the
+elder children. Some of the young ones have, however, managed to
+get in by mistake. SCENE, the Schoolroom.
+
+L. So I am to stand up here merely to be asked questions, to-day,
+Miss Mary, am I?
+
+MARY. Yes; and you must answer them plainly; without telling us
+any more stories. You are quite spoiling the children: the poor
+little things' heads are turning round like kaleidoscopes: and
+they don't know in the least what you mean. Nor do we old ones,
+either, for that matter: to-day you must really tell us nothing
+but facts.
+
+L. I am sworn; but you won't like it, a bit.
+
+MARY. Now, first of all, what do you mean by "bricks"?--Are the
+smallest particles of minerals all of some accurate shape, like
+bricks?
+
+L. I do not know. Miss Mary; I do not even know if anybody knows.
+The smallest atoms which are visibly and practically put together
+to make large crystals, may better be described as "limited in
+fixed directions" than as "of fixed forms." But I can tell you
+nothing clear about ultimate atoms: you will find the idea of
+little bricks, or, perhaps, of little spheres, available for all
+the uses you will have to put it to.
+
+MARY. Well, it's very provoking; one seems always to be stopped
+just when one is coming to the very thing one wants to know.
+
+L. No, Mary, for we should not wish to know anything but what is
+easily and assuredly knowable. There's no end to it. If I could
+show you, or myself, a group of ultimate atoms, quite clearly, in
+this magnifying glass, we should both be presently vexed, because
+we could not break them in two pieces, and see their insides.
+
+MARY. Well then, next, what do you mean by the flying of the
+bricks? What is it the atoms do, that is like flying?
+
+L. When they are dissolved, or uncrystallized, they are really
+separated from each other, like a swarm of gnats in the air, or
+like a shoal of fish in the sea;--generally at about equal
+distances. In currents of solutions, or at different depths of
+them, one part may be more full of the dissolved atoms than
+another; but on the whole, you may think of them as equidistant,
+like the spots in the print of your gown. If they are separated by
+force of heat only, the substance is said to be melted; if they
+are separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by
+water, they are said to be "dissolved." Note this distinction
+carefully, all of you.
+
+DORA. I will be very particular. When next you tell me there isn't
+sugar enough in your tea, I will say, "It is not yet dissolved,
+sir."
+
+L. I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora; and that's the
+present parliament, if the members get too saucy.
+
+(DORA folds her hands and casts down her eyes.)
+
+L. (proceeds in state). 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
+always, crystallizes as it cools; the more slowly the more
+perfectly. Water melts at what we call the freezing, but might
+just as wisely, though not as conveniently, call the melting,
+point; and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all
+known crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and will
+crystallize, if you 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
+crystallize from their vapors. Now in any 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 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 you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't
+do anything with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.
+
+L. Yes, 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 crystallize yourselves.
+
+THE AUDIENCE. Ourselves!
+
+L. Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly on the
+schoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground.
+You can play at crystallization there as much as you please.
+
+KATHLEEN and 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!
+
+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 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, Miss Katie; I can't allow any running against each
+other. The atoms never do that, whatever 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 how to do it; it is only like soldiers forming square,
+except that each must stand still in her place as she reaches it,
+and the others come round her; and you will have much more
+complicated figures, afterwards, to form, than squares.
+
+ISABEL. I'll put a stone at my place: then I shall know it.
+
+L. You might each nail a bit of paper to the turf, at your place,
+with your name upon it: but it would be of no use, for if you
+don't know your places, you will make a fine piece of business of
+it, while you are looking for your names. And, Isabel, if with a
+little head, and eyes, and a brain (all of them very good and
+serviceable of their kind, as such things go), you think you
+cannot know your place without a stone at it, after examining it
+well,--how do you think each atom knows its place, when it never
+was there before, and there's no stone at it?
+
+ISABEL. But does every atom know its place?
+
+L. How else could it get there?
+
+MARY. Are they not attracted into their places?
+
+L. Cover a piece of paper with spots, at equal intervals; and then
+imagine any kind of attraction you choose, or any law of
+attraction, to exist between the spots, and try how, on that
+permitted supposition, you can attract them into the figure of a
+Maltese cross, in the middle of the paper.
+
+MARY (having tried it). Yes; I see that I cannot:--one would need
+all kinds of attractions, in different ways, at different places.
+But you do not mean that the atoms are alive?
+
+L. What is it to be alive?
+
+DORA. There now; you're going to be provoking, I know.
+
+L. I do not see why it should be provoking to be asked what it is
+to be alive. Do you think you don't know whether you are alive or
+not?
+
+(ISABEL skips to the end of the room and back.)
+
+L. Yes, Isabel, that's all very fine; and you and I may call that
+being alive: but a modern philosopher calls it being in a "mode of
+motion." It requires a certain quantity of heat to take you to the
+sideboard; and exactly the same quantity to bring you back again.
+That's all.
+
+ISABEL. No, it isn't. And besides, I'm not hot.
+
+L. I am, sometimes, at the way they talk. 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 carried myself.
+
+L. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what
+makes a thing alive, as what makes it a Self. As soon as you are
+shut off from the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to
+be alive.
+
+VIOLET (indignant). 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, knowing by experience, that all conversations in
+which the word "communion" occurs, are unintelligible, think
+better of it.) Meantime, for broad answer about the atoms. I do
+not think we should use the word "life," of any energy which does
+not belong to a given form. A seed, or an 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 negative, 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 become a ruinous heap. So,
+sometimes by water, sometimes by vapor, sometimes nobody 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 contracting
+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 be's."
+But all that you need fancy, for our present purpose, is that
+hollows in the rocks, like the caves in Derbyshire, are traversed
+by liquids or vapor containing 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 enough! How can you have the
+heart, when you dislike so to be asked them yourself?
+
+L. My dear child, if people do not answer questions, it does not
+matter how many they are asked, because they've no trouble with
+them. Now, when I ask you questions, I never expect to be
+answered; but when you ask me, you always do; and it's not fair.
+
+DORA. Very well, we shall understand, next time.
+
+SIBYL. No, but seriously, we all want to ask one thing more, quite
+dreadfully.
+
+L. And I don't want to be asked it, quite dreadfully; but you'll
+have your own way, of course.
+
+SIBYL. We none of us understand about the lower Pthah. It was not
+merely yesterday; but in all we have read about him in Wilkinson,
+or in any book, we cannot understand what the Egyptians put their
+god into that ugly little deformed shape for.
+
+L. Well, I'm glad it's that sort of question; because I can answer
+anything I like to that.
+
+EGYPT. Anything you like will do 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 I 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
+civillest 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 perfection strengthened the body distortedly; one energy or
+member gaining at the expense of the rest. They especially dreaded
+and despised any kind of work that had to be done near fire: yet,
+feeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as the basis of all
+other work, they expressed this mixed reverence and scorn in the
+varied types of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah.
+
+SIBYL. But what did you mean by making him 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 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 conceive 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 conducted 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 biggest 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-assertor, 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 were
+curious booths, carried on poles; and peep-shows; and music, with
+plenty of drums and cymbals; and much barley-sugar and
+gingerbread, and the like: and in the alleys of this fair the
+London populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion, very
+thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day; he
+made the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like
+his own crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you
+don't look where you are going; and he turned all the canvas into
+panes of glass, and put it up on his iron cross-poles; and made
+all the little booths into one great booth;--and people said it
+was very fine, and a new style of architecture; and Mr. Dickens
+said nothing was ever like it in Fairy-land, which was very true.
+And then the little Pthah set to work to put fine fairings in it;
+and he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he
+could paint (because he had none himself), and he got the angels
+down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his
+gingerbread of old times; and he sent for everything else he could
+think of, and put it in his booth. There are the casts of Niobe
+and her children; and the Chimpanzee; and the wooden Caffres and
+New-Zealanders; and the Shakespeare House; and Le Grand Blondin,
+and Le Petit Blondin; and Handel; and Mozart; and no end of shops,
+and buns, and beer; and all the little-Pthah-worshippers say,
+never was anything so sublime!
+
+SIBYL. Now, do you mean to say you never go to these Crystal
+Palace concerts? they're as good as good can be.
+
+L. I don't go to the thundering things with a million of bad
+voices in them. When I want a song, I get Julia Mannering and Lucy
+Bertram and Counselor Pleydell to sing "We be three poor Mariners"
+to me; then I've no headache next morning. But I do go to the
+smaller concerts, when I can; for they are very good, as you say,
+Sibyl: and I always get a reserved seat somewhere near the
+orchestra, where I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum.
+
+SIBYL. Now DO be serious, for one minute.
+
+L. I am serious--never was more so. You know one can't see the
+modulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration
+of the drummer's hand; and it's lovely.
+
+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 business. I'm always thinking how good it would be for
+the fat, supercilious people, who care so little for their half-
+crown's worth, to be set to try and do a half-crown's worth of
+anything like it.
+
+MARY. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to
+the people of London?
+
+L. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear; but
+they are spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the
+palace (as they call it) is a better place for them, by much, than
+the old fair; and it is always there, instead of for three days
+only; and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And good use may
+be made of the things in it, if you know how: but as for its
+teaching the people, it will teach them nothing but the lowest of
+the lower Pthah's work--nothing but hammer and tongs. I saw a
+wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the other day.
+Some unhappy metal-worker--I am not sure if it was not a metal-
+working firm--had taken three years to make a Golden eagle.
+
+SIBYL. Of real gold?
+
+L. No; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metals--
+it is no matter what. I meant a model of our chief British eagle.
+Every feather was made separately; and every filament of every
+feather separately, and so joined on; and all the quills modeled
+of the right length and right section, and at last the whole
+cluster of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't
+think much of my own drawing; but take my proud word for once,
+that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit
+of chalk in my pocket, and the 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 Pthah's 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 they are) into little round balls; and pushing them home with
+the strong wrong end of it,--head downmost all the way,--like a
+modern political 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 getting cross.
+
+DORA. 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
+
+
+A working Lecture in the large Schoolroom; with experimental
+Interludes. The great bell has rung unexpectedly.
+
+KATHLEEN (entering disconsolate, though first at the summons). Oh
+dear, oh dear, what a day! Was ever anything so provoking! just
+when we wanted to 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 that
+you don't want to crystallize yourselves: you didn't, the day
+before yesterday, 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 perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!
+
+L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves
+uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick
+perhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as
+uncomfortable 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 Gulliver when he saw there was
+nothing better to be done. And to practice patience. I can tell
+you, children, THAT requires nearly as much practicing as music;
+and we are continually losing our lessons when the master comes.
+Now, to-day, here's a nice, little adagio lesson for us, if we
+play it properly.
+
+ISABEL. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it
+properly.
+
+L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to
+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 depends
+ever IS easy. People are always talking of perseverance, and
+courage, and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest
+part of fortitude,--and the rarest, too. I know twenty persevering
+girls for one patient one: but it is only that twenty-first who
+can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience lies at
+the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself
+ceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.
+
+(ISABEL and LILY sit down on the floor, and fold their hands. The
+others follow their example.)
+
+Good children! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded
+hands are not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really
+smiles at grief usually stands, or walks, or even runs: she seldom
+sits; though she may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor
+thing, by monuments; or like Chaucer's, "with face pale, upon a
+hill of sand." But we are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we
+use this calamitous fore-noon 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. General applause.)
+
+MARY (with one or two others). The very thing we wanted to ask you
+about!
+
+LILY. We looked at the books about crystals, but they are so
+dreadful.
+
+L. Well, Lily, we must go through a little dreadfulness, that's a
+fact: no road to any good knowledge is wholly among the lilies and
+the grass; there is rough climbing to be done always. But the
+crystal-books are a little TOO dreadful, most of them, I admit;
+and we shall have to be content with very little of their help.
+You know, as you cannot stand on each other's heads, you can only
+make yourselves into the sections of crystals,--the figures they
+show when they are cut through; and we will choose some that will
+be quite easy. You shall make diamonds of yourselves--
+
+ISABEL. Oh, no, no! we won't be diamonds, please.
+
+L, Yes, you shall, Isabel; they are very pretty things, if the
+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 we 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 let me have three tables wheeled into the three windows, that
+we may keep our specimens separate;--we will keep the three orders
+of crystals on separate tables.
+
+(First Interlude of pushing and pulling, and spreading of baize
+covers. VIOLET, not particularly minding what she is about, gets
+herself jammed into a corner, and bid to stand out of the way; on
+which she devotes herself to meditation.)
+
+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.
+
+ISABEL. Well; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all.
+So mayn't it really be divided into three?
+
+L. If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of
+it, Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in; and if it were
+divided into three in the inside of it, it would soon be no world
+to live in at all.
+
+DORA. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (Aside to
+MARY.) He will get off into political economy before we know where
+we are. (Aloud.) But the crystals are divided into three, then?
+
+L. No; but there are three general notions by which we may best
+get hold of them. Then between these notions there are other
+notions.
+
+LILY (alarmed). A great many? And shall we have to learn them all?
+
+L. More than a great many--a quite infinite many. So you cannot
+learn them all.
+
+LILY (greatly relieved). Then may we only learn the three?
+
+L. Certainly; unless, when you have got those three notions, you
+want to have some more notions;--which would not surprise me. But
+we'll try for the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral
+necklace this morning?
+
+KATHLEEN. Oh! who told you? It was in jumping. I'm so sorry!
+
+L. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it?
+
+KATHLEEN. I've lost some; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can
+only get them out.
+
+L. You mean to get them out some day, I suppose; so try now. I
+want them.
+
+(KATHLEEN empties her pocket on the floor. The beads disperse. The
+School disperses also. Second Interlude--hunting piece.)
+
+L. (after waiting 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
+"NEEDLE-crystals." What would be the next way?
+
+ISABEL. I suppose, as we are to get together in the playground,
+when it stops raining, in different shapes?
+
+L. Yes; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you
+can, to begin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close.
+
+ISABEL (after careful endeavor). I can't get them closer.
+
+L. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to
+throw yourselves into square in this confused way, you will never
+know your places; so you had better consider every square as made
+of rods, put side by side. Take four beads of equal size, first,
+Isabel; put them into a little square. That, you may consider as
+made up of two rods of two beads each. Then you can make a square
+a size larger, out of three rods of three. Then the next square
+may be a size larger. How many rods, Lily?
+
+LILY. Four rods of four beads each, 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 (pushing 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 pushed the two others farther apart.
+
+ISABEL. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were!
+
+L. Yes; for before, each of them only touched two of the others,
+but now each of the two in the middle touches the other three.
+Take away one of the outsiders, Isabel: now you have three in a
+triangle--the smallest triangle you can make out of the beads. Now
+put a rod of three beads on at one side. So, you have a triangle
+of six beads; but just the shape of the first one. Next a rod of
+four on the side of that; and you have a triangle of ten beads:
+then a rod of five on the side of that; and you have a triangle of
+fifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads on the side, and a
+triangle with five beads on the side; equal-sided, therefore, like
+the square. So, however few or many you may be, you may soon learn
+how to crystallize quickly into these two 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!
+
+L. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at
+all, but woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold
+enough there to gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten
+thin.
+
+VIOLET. How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with
+frost.
+
+L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It
+is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is
+Transylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the
+mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so
+alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that
+may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it,
+it's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven so fine anywhere
+else.
+
+MARY (who has been 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?
+
+MAY. There's no word--it is beyond words.
+
+L. Yes, and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts
+too. But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not
+from the ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to
+remember the second kind of crystals, LEAF-crystals, or FOLIATED
+crystals, though I show you the form in gold first only to make a
+strong impression on you, for gold is not generally or
+characteristically, crystallized in leaves; the real type of
+foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; 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 countries.
+
+KATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?
+
+L. To powder, if you like.
+
+(Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation. Third
+Interlude. It sustains severely philosophic al treatment at all
+hands.)
+
+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 magnifying 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?
+
+L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic
+specimen of a foliated crystallization. The little triangles are
+portions 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 intermediate link, in
+crystals, between mica and gold. Yet this is the commonest, as
+gold the rarest, of metals.
+
+MARY. Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.
+
+L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallized: from its resemblance
+to mica, it is often called micaceous iron.
+
+KATHLEEN. May we break this, too?
+
+L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides,
+it would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the
+glass again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the
+triangles where they lap over each other. The gold has the same:
+but you see them better here, terrace above terrace, countless,
+and, in successive angles, like superb fortified bastions.
+
+MAY. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?
+
+L. Far from it; mica is occasionally so. but usually of hexagons;
+and here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show
+you that the leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as
+well as their autumnal gold.
+
+FLORRIE. Oh! oh! oh! (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 (sighing). There are so many beautiful things we never see!
+
+L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we
+should all sigh for--that there are so many ugly things we never
+see.
+
+VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!
+
+L. You had better say, "We don't want to suffer them." You ought
+to be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than
+human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more
+evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more
+than his hands can ever heal.
+
+VIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?
+
+L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our
+neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of
+half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone, and takes more
+notice of it than of all the green in the wood, and you, or I, or
+any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us
+were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day,
+of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger,
+faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;--and then
+go out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened.
+
+MAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.
+
+L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the
+other day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him; and
+played no croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and
+what is more, you must let me talk straight on, for a little
+while; and ask no questions till I've done: for we branch
+("exfoliate," I should say, mineralogically) always into something
+else,--though that's my fault more than yours; but I must go
+straight on now. You have got a distinct notion, I hope, of leaf-
+crystals; and you see the sort of look they have: you can easily
+remember that "folium" is Latin for a leaf, and that the separate
+flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called "folia;" but,
+because mica is the most characteristic of these stones, other
+things that are like it in structure are called "micas;" thus we
+have Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-
+mica, which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this
+foliated iron is called "micaceous iron." You have then these two
+great orders, Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows;
+and Leaf-crystals, made (probably) of needles interwoven; 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 beautifully 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 hexagonal 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
+quickly what main differences to look for. First, you will feel it
+far heavier than the mica. Then, though its surface looks quite
+micaceous in the folia of it when you try them with the knife, you
+will find you cannot break them away--
+
+KATHLEEN. May I try?
+
+L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you.
+(Experimental pause. KATHLEEN doing her best.) You'll have that
+knife shutting on your finger presently, Kate; and I don't know a
+girl who would like less to have her hand tied up for a week.
+
+KATHLEEN (who also does not like to be 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 one?
+
+L. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful 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 stone again, very delicately;
+and drops it. General consternation.)
+
+L. Never mind, Katie, you might drop it from the top of the house,
+and do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and
+as good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have
+your faults, like other people, and, if I were you, the next time
+I wanted to assert anything energetically, I would assert it by
+"my badness," not "my goodness."
+
+KATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!
+
+L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my "too-badness." But you
+may as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look
+carefully at the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its
+surface, and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the same
+stone as the ruby), in which you will see the same lovely
+structure, like the threads of the finest white cobweb. I do not
+know what is the exact method of a ruby's construction, but you
+see by these lines, what fine construction there is, even in this
+hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually appears as a
+massive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical
+distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but,
+practically, 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 them
+"FIBROUS;" when they are in folia, they make them "FOLIATED;" when
+they are in knots (or grains), "GRANULAR." 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 amianthus, for
+instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you
+ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with sharper
+points and brighter 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 grand 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 crystals.
+[Footnote: Note iv.] 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 exquisitely,
+out of its cubes, into this red silk in one particular Cornish
+mine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the
+octahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that
+mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls'
+strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners
+of crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the
+most curious teaching for you. For in the fulfillment, to the best
+of their power, of their adopted form under given circumstances,
+there are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue;
+and indeed expressible under no term so proper as that of the
+Virtue, or Courage of crystals;--which, if you are not afraid of
+the crystals making you ashamed of yourselves, we will by to get
+some notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, and more
+about yourselves than the minerals. Don't come unless you like.
+
+MARY. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but
+we'll come, for all that.
+
+L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread
+crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying
+glasses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads
+about them. For the best thoughts are generally those which come
+without being forced, one does not know how. And so I hope you
+will get through your wet day patiently.
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 5.
+
+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! Florrie ashamed of herself?
+
+(FLORRIE hides behind the curtain.)
+
+L. And Isabel?
+
+(ISABEL hides under the table.)
+
+L. And Mary?
+
+(MARY runs into the corner behind the piano.)
+
+L. And Lucilla?
+
+(LUCILLA hides her face in her hands.)
+
+L. Dear, dear; but this will never do. I shall have to tell you of
+the faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in
+heart again.
+
+MAY (coming out of 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 (from behind her curtain). As naughty as me?
+
+ISABEL (peeping out from under the table-cloth). Or me?
+
+L. Well, I don't know. They never forget their syntax, children,
+when once they've been taught it. But I think some of them are, on
+the whole, worse than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to
+look so radiant, all in a minute, on that account.
+
+DORA. Oh! but it's so much more comfortable.
+
+(Everybody seems to recover 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 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 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 transparent substance. You cannot
+have a transparent 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 rejecting impurity, if it
+has crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well
+enough shaped in its way; but it seems to have been languid and
+sick at heart; and some white milky substance has got into it, and
+mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite
+yellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on the
+surface. Here is another, broken into a thousand separate facets
+and out of all traceable shape; but as pure as a mountain spring.
+I like this one best.
+
+THE AUDIENCE. So do I--and I--and I.
+
+MARY. Would a crystallographer?
+
+L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified
+in the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile
+question, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a
+prior, if not a nobler, virtue; at all events it is most
+convenient to think about it first.
+
+MARY. But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be
+thought--I mean, much to puzzle one?
+
+L. I don't know what you call "much." It is a long time since I
+met with anything in which there was little. There's not much in
+this, perhaps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean,--and
+there's an end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart--
+only you can wash your hands without changing them, but not
+hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, it will
+be as well to take care that your hearts don't want much washing;
+for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they do.
+
+(Audience doubtful and uncomfortable. LUCILLA at last takes
+courage.)
+
+LUCILLA. Oh! 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?
+
+L. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground you are
+getting upon; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we
+understand what THEIR good and evil consist in; they may help us
+afterwards to some useful hints about our own. I said that their
+goodness consisted chiefly in purity of substance, and perfectness
+of form: but those are rather the EFFECTS of their goodness, than
+the goodness itself. The inherent virtues of the crystals,
+resulting in these outer conditions, might really seem to be best
+described in the words we should use respecting living creatures--
+"force of heart" and "steadiness of purpose." There seem to be in
+some crystals, from the beginning, an unconquerable purity of
+vital power, and strength of crystal spirit. Whatever dead
+substance, unacceptant of this energy, comes in their way, is
+either rejected, or forced to take some beautiful subordinate
+form; the purity of the crystal remains unsullied, and every atom
+of it bright with coherent energy. Then the second condition is,
+that from the beginning of its whole structure, a fine crystal
+seems to have determined that it will be of a certain size and of
+a certain shape; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here
+is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form,
+and one which it might seem very difficult to build--a pyramid
+with convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there is
+not a flaw in its contour throughout; not one of its myriads of
+component sides but is as bright as a jeweler's faceted work (and
+far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp
+as javelins; their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything
+more resolute, consummate, determinate in form, cannot be
+conceived. Here, on the other hand, is a crystal of the same
+substance, in a perfectly simple type of form--a plain six-sided
+prism; but from its base to its point,--and it is nine inches
+long,--it has never for one instant made up its mind what
+thickness it will have. It seems to have begun by making itself as
+thick as it thought possible with the quantity of material at
+command. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it has
+clumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has
+thinned itself, in a panic of economy; then puffed itself out
+again; then starved one side to enlarge another; then warped
+itself quite out of its first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, jagged
+on the edge, distorted in the spine, it exhibits a quite human
+image of decrepitude and dishonor; but the worst of all the signs
+of its decay and helplessness is that half-way up a parasite
+crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself in the
+side of the larger one, eating out a cavity round its root, and
+then growing backwards, or downwards contrary to the direction of
+the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least difference in
+purity of substance between the first most noble stone, and this
+ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its
+will, or want of will.
+
+MARY. Oh, if we could but understand the meaning of it all!
+
+L. We can understand all that is good for us. It is just as true
+for us as for the crystal, that the nobleness of life depends on
+its consistency,--clearness of purpose--quiet and ceaseless
+energy. All doubt and repenting, and botching and re-touching and
+wondering what will it be best to do next, are vice, as well as
+misery.
+
+MARY (much wondering). But must not one repent when one does
+wrong, and hesitate when one can't see one's way?
+
+L. You have no business at all to do wrong, nor to get into any
+way that you cannot see. Your intelligence should always be far in
+advance of your act. Whenever you do not know what you are about,
+you are sure to be doing wrong.
+
+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 can be wrong,
+like Kathleen or me, when we 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 not mean
+to do wrong when he killed Abel.
+
+(ISABEL draws a deep breath, and opens her eyes very 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
+provocation than Cain had, but for NO provocation,--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 difficulty 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 worse, 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 does wrong, 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" may be 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
+spoiling 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,
+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 do 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. You 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 fatal
+thing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law
+of nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate 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 herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be
+starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's
+faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-
+day; do you think that your goodness 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? Heaven only knows where they,
+and we who have cast them there shall stand at last But the main
+judgment question 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 yourself. 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?
+
+LUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.
+
+L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil--"only evil
+continually." Somehow, 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 little uncomfortable at the substitution of the
+monosyllable for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in 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 something I had to show you,
+about minerals that are like hair I want a hair out of Tittie's
+tail.
+
+FLORRIE. (quite rude in her surprise, even to the point of
+repeating expressions). Out of Tittie'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!
+
+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.
+
+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 Tittie'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 Tittie'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 possibly 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 outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul
+and false. Is that the way?
+
+LUCILLA. I suppose so: I don't understand it quite.
+
+L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it?
+Are you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and
+desperately wicked?
+
+LUCILLA (much relieved by finding 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?
+
+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 are
+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.
+
+L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is
+not the crystalline 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
+written--"another law in my members, warring 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
+written, 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 suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain
+your feelings to you?
+
+LUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.
+
+L. Mind, I say your "feelings," not your "belief." For I cannot
+undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little,
+first, to explain the belief also, because 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
+uncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not
+sensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all.
+(Approving murmurs from audience.)
+
+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,
+signifying "Certainly not," and "What next?")
+
+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.)
+
+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 No's.)
+
+L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily processes of
+nourishment and decay?
+
+(No.)
+
+L. Still less if instead of merely inferior and preparatory
+conditions of structure, as in the skeleton,--or inferior offices
+of structure, as in operations of life and death,--there were
+actual disease in the body, ghastly 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
+watching 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 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 accused 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 you, 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 has 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 rejoice in THEIR nobleness. An immense quantity 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 ourselves so much, how did
+the old Greek proverb "Know thyself" come to be so highly
+esteemed?
+
+L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and
+the sun's--but do you think you can know yourself by looking INTO
+yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking OUT of
+yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare
+your own interests with those of others; try to understand what
+you appear to them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge
+of yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately; not
+positively: starting always with a wholesome conviction of the
+probability that there is nothing particular about you. For
+instance, some of you perhaps think you can write poetry. Dwell on
+your own feelings; and doings:--and you will soon think yourselves
+Tenth Muses; but forget your own feeling; and try, instead, to
+understand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and you will soon
+begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls--which is much like
+the fact.
+
+So, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune,--you
+meditate over its effects on you personally: and begin to think
+that it is a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or the
+other of profound significance; and that all the angels in heaven
+have left their business for a little while, that they may watch
+its effects on your mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of
+your fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, greater a thousand-
+fold, are happening, every second, to twenty times worthier
+persons: and your self-consciousness will change into pity and
+humility; and you will know yourself so far as to understand that
+"there hath nothing taken thee but what is common to man."
+
+Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person
+of sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the
+inner evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they
+are often supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which
+common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old
+monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was
+said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What
+fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your
+hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and
+declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and
+that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts
+that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster.
+Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body,
+not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific
+distinction between the bad and the good ones. "A good man, out of
+the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good;
+and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that
+which is evil." "They on the rock are they which, in an honest and
+good heart, having heard the word, keep it." "Delight thyself in
+the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine 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. "Keep thy heart with all diligence,
+for out of it are the issues of life."
+
+LUCILLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem!
+
+L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look
+consistent to a girl of fifteen? Look up at your own room window;
+--you can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left
+open, as it ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a
+black spot it looks, in the sunlighted 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 for YOU, remember, is not "dark or light?" but "tidy or
+untidy?" Look well to your sweeping and garnishing; and be sure it
+is only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at
+his back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black.
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 6.
+
+CRYSTAL QUARRELS
+
+
+Full conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game of
+crystallization in the morning, of which various account has to be
+rendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why they were
+always where they were not intended to be.
+
+L. (having received and considered the report). You have got on
+pretty well children: but you know these were easy figures you
+have been trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some
+crystals of snow!
+
+MARY. I don't think those will be the most 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
+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--nothing so much as
+the half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it.
+
+MARY. Indeed; what else is there?
+
+L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallizes alone. Usually two
+or three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together.
+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 themselves how much space each will want;--agree which of
+them shall give way to the other at their junction; or in what
+measure each will accommodate itself to the other's shape! And
+then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space;
+yielding, or being yielded to, as it builds till each crystal has
+fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-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.
+
+L. Yes, it implies both the concurrence and compromise, regulating
+all wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do
+NOT always give way to each other. They show exactly the same
+varieties of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they
+yield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming
+fantastic, but exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they
+will not yield at all; but fight furiously for their places,
+losing all shape and honor, and even their own likeness, in the
+contest.
+
+MARY. But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never
+sees it spoken of in books?
+
+L. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant
+laws under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite 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?
+
+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
+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 mineral, than between any two
+specimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of
+crystals depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties
+of disposition, than any associations of flowers. Here, for
+instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red,
+and the other silver white; the mica leaves exactly room enough
+for the garnet to crystallize comfortably in; and the garnet lives
+happily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in
+its cell. But here are wicked garnets living with wicked mica. See
+what ruin they make of each other! You cannot tell which is which;
+the garnets look like dull red stains on the crumbling stone. By
+the way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint,
+why he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all under
+his care; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to look
+after. The streets of Airolo are paved with them.
+
+MAY. Paved with garnets?
+
+L. With mica-slate and garnets; I broke this bit out of a paving
+stone. Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally
+fond of each other; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill
+brought up. So it is always. Good crystals are friendly with
+almost all other good crystals, however little they chance to see
+of each other, or however opposite their habits may be; while
+wicked crystals quarrel with one another, though they may be
+exactly alike in habits, and see each other continually. And of
+course the wicked crystals quarrel with the good ones.
+
+ISABEL. Then do the good ones get angry?
+
+L. No, never: they attend to their own work and life; and live it
+as 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 layer of crystal over
+the clay; conquered 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 at his angles, and tried
+to cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out
+buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central
+line as chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round
+the clay; and conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his
+summit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure
+that for an instant; and left his flanks all rough, but pure; and
+fought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest and peak
+over peak, till the clay surrendered at last, and here is his
+summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay
+and crystal, half a foot high!
+
+LILY. Oh, how nice of him! What a dear, brave crystal! But I can't
+bear to 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 struggle: the adverse power has been more
+orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its
+own. This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil: here is
+a disciplined hostility; army against army.
+
+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.
+
+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 crystallizes 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 column.
+
+ISABEL. Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal
+do?
+
+L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it
+through at every charge. Look here,--and here! The loveliest
+crystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.
+
+ISABEL. Oh, dear; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then?
+
+L. No, softer. Very much softer.
+
+MARY. But then, how can it possibly cut the 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 anything. It has all the rough outside work;
+and every sort of cowardly and weak mineral can shelter itself
+within it. Look; these are hexagonal plates of mica; if they were
+outside of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper; but
+they are inside of it,--nothing can hurt them,--the crystal has
+taken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate edges
+as sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock.
+Here is a piece of branched silver: you can bend it with a touch
+of your finger, but the stamp of its every 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 as something I heard you talking about, last
+time, with 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 listening; 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 then, and now; I will show you
+that there is not, some day. Will you trust me meanwhile?
+
+ISABEL. Won't I!
+
+L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz;
+it is on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born
+quartz living with a green mineral, called 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 unluckily
+towards each other, so that at last they meet. They cannot go on
+growing together; the quartz crystal is five times as thick, and
+more than twenty times as strong[Footnote: Quartz is not much
+harder than epidote; the strength is only supposed to be in some
+proportion to the squares of the diameters.], 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 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 perfectly formed, and have
+a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But here, when the two
+minerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged
+and torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron crystal whose
+shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the worst of
+it, in both instances.
+
+VIOLET. Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with
+the weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely
+thing, like the self-sacrifice of a human being.
+
+L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing,
+Violet. It is often a 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 "giving up one's self"?
+
+VIOLET. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's
+happiness, and so on, to make others happy.
+
+L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to
+make him happy in that way.
+
+VIOLET (hesitating). In what way?
+
+L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and
+happiness.
+
+VIOLET. No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people,
+one must.
+
+L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about?
+Be it so; but how does this "giving up" differ from suicide then?
+
+VIOLET. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?
+
+L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice,
+but self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you
+surrender the pleasure of 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
+go 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 understood that.
+
+L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if
+it is to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her 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 your feet run into mischief,
+or are taken in the snare,--it is indeed time to pluck out, and
+cut off, I think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you
+might have been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or
+maimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.
+
+VIOLET (after 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 Thermopylae, and Protesilaus,
+and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and
+Jephthah's daughter?
+
+L. (sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the Samaritan woman's
+son?
+
+DORA. Which Samaritan woman's?
+
+L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.
+
+DORA (obeys). How horrid! As if we meant 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 lip). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean.
+As if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this
+moment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!
+
+L. I mean, and 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
+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 apparently beautiful things which
+turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that
+the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men
+must be named as one of the fatalest. They have so often been
+taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and
+foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on
+which Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid
+it,--that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their
+appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not
+the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies
+than to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to see
+done, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others
+causelessly: 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 be need for much self-sacrifice and self-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 continuous law of being.
+Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually
+foolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental
+proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made
+most of their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their
+religion so hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation,
+with its lips, pretends to teach every man to "love his 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 people's labor. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to
+his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts; and
+to strengthen them for the help of others. Do you think Titian
+would have helped the world better by denying himself, and not
+painting; or Casella by denying himself, and not singing! The real
+virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us; as he was,
+even in purgatory. The very word "virtue" means not "conduct" but
+"strength," vital energy in the heart. Were not you reading about
+that group of words beginning with V,--vital, virtuous, vigorous,
+and so on,--in Max Muller, 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 mortify 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?
+
+L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you
+enough ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play.
+Lily, what were 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 suppose?
+
+LILY. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome,
+when one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as
+fast as they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and
+pushing, SO hard; and tumbling over and 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 French 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.
+
+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 why 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 common with half the religious world. There is but one way in
+which man can ever help God--that is, by letting God help him: and
+there is no way in which His name is more guiltily taken in vain,
+than by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance
+of His.
+
+God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes
+us to be employed; and that 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 yourselves
+upon pouting.
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 7.
+
+HOME VIRTUES
+
+
+By the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening.
+
+DORA. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright, and
+here's your 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 morning, Miss Katie.
+
+KATHLEEN. Me singing!
+
+MAY. Oh tell us--tell us.
+
+L. "Vilikens and his--"
+
+KATHLEEN (stopping his mouth). Oh! please don't. Where were you?
+
+ISABEL. I'm sure I wish I had known where he was! We lost him
+among the rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to; oh, you
+naughty--naughty--(climbs on his knee).
+
+DORA. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk.
+
+L. _I_ 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 crosser than two
+sticks; and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six.
+Come here, Egypt; and get on the other side of him.
+
+(EGYPT takes up a commanding position near the hearth-brush.)
+
+DORA (reviewing her forces). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in
+front.
+
+(LILY does as she is bid.)
+
+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 girls'
+virtues.
+
+EGYPT. Indeed! And the second?
+
+L. Dressing.
+
+EGYPT. Now, you needn't say that! I mended that tear the first
+thing before breakfast this morning.
+
+L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical 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?
+
+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 in 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).
+
+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 flashing). Now, you don't mean that; and you're too
+provoking; and we won't dance again, for a month.
+
+L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only
+banish me to the library; and dance by yourselves; but I don't
+think Jessie and 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 to let their eyes flash when
+they dislike what people say: and, more than that, it is all
+nonsense from beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I
+don't know any more tiresome flower in the borders than your
+especially "modest" snowdrop; which one always has to stoop down
+and take all sorts of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its
+poor little head off, before you can 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! 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, Dorothy, you needn't talk,
+you know!
+
+L. I know she needn't, Jessie, I shall ask her about those dark
+plaits presently. (DORA looks round to see if there is any way
+open for retreat) But never mind, it was worth the time, whatever
+it was, and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a
+chignon: but if you don't want it to be seen you had better wear a
+cap.
+
+JESSIE. Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And
+we all have been thinking, and thinking, all 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 comfortable.)
+
+ISABEL. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty!--
+Kathleen, come here.
+
+L. (knowing what he has to expect if KATHLEEN comes). Get away,
+Isabel, you're too heavy. (Sitting up.) What have I been saying?
+
+DORA. I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never
+heard anything like the things you've been saying.
+
+L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it
+is all I want.
+
+EGYPT. Yes, but 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 walking. Don't you recollect
+"Louisa,"
+
+    "No fountain from a rocky cave
+    E'er tripped with foot so free;
+    She seemed as happy as a wave
+    That dances on the sea."
+
+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.
+
+MAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak
+against dancing?
+
+L. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as
+good. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write
+Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise
+for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get
+on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children,
+though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one:
+"Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men
+and old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy."
+
+(The children get very serious, but 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 do YOU mean by dressing?
+
+MARY. Wearing fine clothes.
+
+L. Ah! there's the mistake. _I_ mean wearing plain ones.
+
+MARY. Yes, I daresay I 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
+understand that they can make a dress and--which is quite as
+difficult--wear one.
+
+DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all
+wear them--out, before anybody expects it.
+
+EGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn
+flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!
+
+L. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.)
+Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of
+UNdressing.
+
+DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?
+
+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 bath.)
+
+L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes).
+Now you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were
+meant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens,
+too; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and
+dancing, as we said, of course and--one thing more.
+
+DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?
+
+L. Yes; on Violet's system of 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 of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means
+the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and
+of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory
+in meats, it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and
+watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance, it
+means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of
+modern chemists; it means much tasting, and no wasting, it means
+English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and
+it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always
+"ladies"--"loaf-givers;" and, as you are to see, imperatively,
+that everybody has something pretty to put on,--so you are to see,
+yet more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.
+
+(Another pause, and 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 sleep, if she is waiting
+for me to come.
+
+ISABEL. Oh, yes, Lily, I'll go to sleep to-night. I will, indeed.
+
+LILY. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes! (To
+L.) You'll tell me something of what you we been saying, to-
+morrow, won't you?
+
+L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It'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 outcome of it, so, than
+if you were to hear all the talks that eer were talked, and all
+the stories that ever were told. Good-night.
+
+(The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory closes
+on LILY, ISABEL, FLORRIE, and other diminutive and submissive
+victims.)
+
+JESSIE (after a pause). Why, I thought you were so fond of Miss
+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 pleasanter or wiser people; no one who tells you more
+truly how to do right. And it is very nice, in the midst of a wild
+world, to have the very ideal of poetical justice done always to
+one's hand:--to have everybody found out, who tells lies; and
+everybody decorated with a red riband, who doesn't; and to see the
+good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, receiving a grand
+ovation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the purpose; and
+poor, dear, little 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 understand it?
+
+L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be
+done mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an
+injustice to her to say that: her heroines always do right simply
+for its own sake, as they should; and her examples of conduct and
+motive are wholly admirable. But her representation of events is
+false and misleading. Her good characters never are brought into
+the deadly trial of goodness,--the doing right, and 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 dinner
+parties, and being put over everybody else's head.
+
+DORA. But what does it mean then? That is just what we couldn't
+understand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing
+ourselves, yesterday.
+
+L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you
+see to be the straight one; 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, yourself; nor cut your cross to
+your own liking. Some people think it would be better for them to
+have it large; and many, that they could carry it much faster if
+it were small; and even those who like it largest are usually very
+particular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony.
+But all that you have really to do is to keep your back as
+straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it--above
+all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential
+meaning of "virtue" is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may
+laugh, children, but it is. You know I was to tell you about the
+words that began with V. Sibyl, what does "virtue" mean literally?
+
+SIBYL. Does it mean courage?
+
+L. Yes; but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the
+nerve; vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in
+Max Muller, you will find really means "nerve," and from it come
+"vis," and "vir," and "virgin" (through vireo), and the connected
+word "virga"--"a rod;"--the green rod, or springing bough of a
+tree, being the type of perfect human strength, both in the use
+of. it in the Mosaic story, when it becomes a serpent, or strikes
+the rock; or when Aaron's bears its almonds; and in the
+metaphorical expressions, the "Rod out of the stem of Jesse," and
+the "Man whose name is the Branch," and so on. And the essential
+idea of real virtue is that of a vital human strength, which
+instinctively, 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, irrespectively of all motive, of fear, or of reward.
+It is the blackest sign of putrescence in a national religion,
+when men speak as if it were the only safeguard of conduct; and
+assume that, but for the fear of being burned, or for the hope of
+being rewarded, everybody would pass their lives in 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 (after 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 apprentice
+--fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, "Father, I
+could have robbed the till to-day; but I didn't, because I thought
+you wouldn't like it." Do you think the father would be
+particularly pleased?
+
+(VIOLET is silent.)
+
+He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, "My boy,
+though you had no father, 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 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 simply 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, or comfort, the knowledge of future consequences
+may often be helpful to us; but helpful chiefly to the better
+state when we can act without reference to them. And there's no
+measuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward
+on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the
+monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and
+ambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their
+follies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity
+of pride, to begin with, in what is called "giving one's self to
+God." As if one had ever belonged to anybody else!
+
+DORA. But, surely, great good has come out of the monastic system
+--our books,--our sciences--all saved by the monks?
+
+L. Saved from what, my dear? From the abyss of misery and ruin
+which that false Christianity allowed the whole active world to
+live in. When it had become the principal amusement, and the most
+admired art of Christian men, to cut one another's throats, and
+burn one another's towns; of course the few feeble or reasonable
+persons left, who desired quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got
+into cloisters; and the gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and
+women shut themselves up, precisely where they could be of least
+use. They are very fine things, for us painters, now--the 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, dangling there for the sign of the Golden Fleece; or
+like Socrates in his basket in the "Clouds"! (I must read you that
+bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children,
+I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am,
+it is in their favor. I have always had a strong leaning that way;
+and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and
+happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with
+Carthusians 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 whole, done, with all that leisure, and all that
+good-will! What nonsense monks characteristically wrote;--what
+little progress they made in the sciences to which they devoted
+themselves as a duty,--medicine especially;--and, last and worst,
+what depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another, and
+the population round them, sink into; without either doubting
+their system, or reforming it!
+
+(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
+attractive to young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous one;--
+0the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit
+of meditation on the "things above," or things of the next world.
+Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on
+whatever appears to them most desirable and 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
+authority for the reveries to which it is owing. We are told
+nothing distinctly of the heavenly world; except that it will be
+free from sorrow, and pure from sin. What is said of pearl gates,
+golden floors, and the like, is accepted as merely figurative by
+religious enthusiasts themselves; and whatever they pass their
+time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, of
+their 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,
+that to seclude themselves from the rough duties of life, merely
+to write religious romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream
+them, without taking so much trouble as is implied in writing,
+ought not to be received as an act of heroic virtue. But, observe,
+even in admitting thus much, I have assumed 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 imaginations 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 cautious in the indulgence of a merely
+contemplative habit of mind. Observe, it is the fashion to look at
+such a thing only as a piece of barbarous art; that is the
+smallest part of its interest. What I want you to see, is the
+baseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in
+which such a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a
+figure, with two small round black beads for eyes; a gilded face,
+deep cut into horrible wrinkles; an open gash for a mouth, and a
+distorted skeleton for a body, wrapped about, to make it fine,
+with striped enamel of blue and gold;--that such a figure, I say,
+should ever have been thought helpful towards the conception of a
+Redeeming Deity, may make 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 different from this; but in
+what does the difference consist? Not in any more divine authority
+in your imagination; but in the intellectual work of six
+intervening centuries; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has
+refined this crude conception for you, and filled you, partly with
+an innate sensation, partly with an 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
+took the pains to analyze, and had the perfect means of analyzing,
+that power of Angelico,--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 destructive of all religious
+faith whatever, than such a supposition, could not be. And yet,
+what other monk ever produced such work? I have myself examined
+carefully upwards of two thousand illuminated missals, with
+especial view to the discovery of any evidence of a similar result
+upon the art, from the monkish devotion; and utterly in vain.
+
+MARY. But then, was not Fra Angelico a man of entirely separate
+and exalted genius?
+
+L. Unquestionably; and granting him to be that, the peculiar
+phenomenon in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its
+weakness. The effect of "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 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
+remains notable in him,--which, logically, we ought therefore to
+attribute to the religious fervor;--and that distinctive character
+is, the contented indulgence of his own weaknesses, and
+perseverance in his own ignorances.
+
+MARY. But that's dreadful! And what is the source of the peculiar
+charm which we all feel in his work?
+
+L. There are many sources of it, 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 modifying 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 joining in the toil; and consummating it in
+Florence, in that century, with such embroidery 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 applies it in the tenderest way to subjects which
+are peculiarly acceptant of it. But the inspiration, if it exist
+anywhere, flashes on the knight's shield quite as radiantly as on
+the monk's picture. Examining farther into the sources of your
+emotion in the Angelico work, you will find much of the impression
+of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture,
+consummating itself in the floating, flying, and above all, in the
+dancing groups. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a
+peculiarly tender use of systems of grouping which had been long
+before developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna; and the real root
+of it all is simply--What do you think, children? The 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 to read you the end of the second volume of
+"Modern Painters"!
+
+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 distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you
+love, else you might come to love both alike; or even the
+weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking Overbeck
+and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been
+leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things,
+in to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that
+I do not deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages
+resulting, in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie,
+and from the other practices of saints and anchorites. The
+evidence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected,
+much less dispassionately examined: but assuredly, there is in
+that direction a probability, and more than a probability, of
+dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the practice of
+an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attaining a
+higher religious position, which induces us to encounter, for its
+exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I
+said, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest
+usefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest
+place in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the
+least likely to receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable,
+"Friend, go up higher."
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 8.
+
+CRYSTAL CAPRICE
+
+
+Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of
+minerals.
+
+L. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might
+be seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by
+visible opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which
+the variety, however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel,
+ourselves, for many and slight causes,--much more, one should
+think, may crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue
+about it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human
+ways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no
+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
+crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine
+audience. (Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said
+audience.) Now, you need not pretend that 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 infinitely, by infinitude of change. (Audible murmurs of
+"Worse and worse!" "As if we could be got over that way!" Etc. The
+LECTURER, however, observing the expression of the features to be
+more complacent, proceeds.) And the most curious mimicry, if not
+of your changes of fashion, at least of your various modes (in
+healthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the
+crystals of different 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 produced the form
+peculiar to each locality, this would be just as true of the
+fancies of the human mind. If we could know the exact
+circumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to
+us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only
+caprice of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on
+the whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of
+Berne should wear their caps in the shape of butterflies; and the
+peasant girls of Munich theirs in the shape of shells, than to say
+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 octahedrons, 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
+construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single
+mineral, quart;--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 extremities its "cap." Now, here,
+first you have a straight column as long and thin as a stalk of
+asparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here 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 tapering to a little cap; and here is one
+stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a
+slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little
+caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column
+built of columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half-way
+to their points. And in both these last, the little crystals are
+set anyhow, and build the large one in a disorderly way; but here
+is a crystal made of columns and truncated caps, set in regular
+terraces all the way up.
+
+MARY. But are not these groups of crystals, rather than one
+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 expected 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 crystals.
+
+L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the
+shape of one person?
+
+(MARY still at pause.)
+
+ISABEL. No, because they can't; but you know the crystals can; so
+why shouldn't they?
+
+L. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even
+often. Look here, Isabel.
+
+ISABEL. What a nasty ugly thing!
+
+L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful
+crystals; they are a little gray and cold in color, but most of
+them are clear.
+
+ISABEL. But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!
+
+L. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are
+naturally orderly. Some little girls' rooms are naturally orderly,
+I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they
+cry out so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.
+
+ISABEL. Oh! but how come they to be like that?
+
+L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking,
+as if they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It is
+wonderful--as we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the
+supremely wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruinous or
+wasteful, or deathful! I look at this wild piece of
+crystallization with endless astonishment.
+
+MARY. Where does it come from?
+
+L. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is that
+it should be in a vein of fine quartz. If it were in a mouldering
+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.
+
+MARY. But surely this is ruin, not caprice?
+
+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 hoarfrost; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as
+silk; here into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver;
+as if for the gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful
+little plates, for them to eat off; presently it is in towers
+which they might be imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells,
+where they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever
+hear of them more; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn; here,
+some in drifts, like snow; here, some in rays, like stars: and,
+though these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the
+mineral takes in other places, they are all taken here with such a
+grace that you 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 torment 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 sympathy there seemed to be in
+them with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern
+architecture. So, when I fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and
+St. Barbara talking together.
+
+DORA. But what had St. Barbara to do with it?
+
+L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good
+architects; not St. Thomas, 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 foundations; 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 threw her shuttle
+slowly; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff
+little gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with
+embroidery that it dazzled me whenever she moved; the train of it
+was just like a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full
+of corners, and so many-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 architecture in Egypt and Greece; and when Neith told her the
+measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said she thought they would
+have been better three-cornered and when Neith told her the
+measures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought
+to 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
+valleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping,
+just as one of you might to an old lady: and certainly she talked
+in the sweetest way in the world to Neith; and explained to her
+all about crockets and pinnacles: and Neith sat, looking very
+grave; and always graver as St. Barbara went on; till at last, I'm
+sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little.
+
+MARY (very grave herself). "St. Barbara"?
+
+L. Yes, Mary. 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!
+
+L. If I did, it would not make me sure that you knew too, May: but
+I don't.
+
+VIOLET (expressing the incredulity of the audience). Oh,--sir!
+
+L. That is to say, I know that people are called saints who are
+supposed to be better than others: but I don't know how much
+better they must be, in order to be saints; nor how nearly anybody
+may be a saint, and yet not be quite one; nor whether 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 Infinities--and a little shocked--and much puzzled by so many
+questions at once.)
+
+L. Besides, did you never hear that verse about being--called to
+be "saints"?
+
+MAY (repeats Rom. i. 7).
+
+L. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called to be that? People
+in Rome only?
+
+MAY. 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?
+
+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 are not more able or
+willing for their difficulties than you children are for yours.
+All I can say is, that if ever I see any of you, when you are
+seven or eight and twenty, knitting 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 Neilh didn't care, and
+then St Barbara got as red as a rose, and stopped just in time,--
+or I think she would really have said something naughty.
+
+ISABEL Oh please, but didn't Neith say anything then?
+
+L. Yes. She said, quite quietly, "It may be very pretty, my love;
+but it is all nonsense."
+
+ISABEL. Oh dear, oh dear; and then?
+
+L. Well; then I was a little angry myself, and hoped St. Barbara
+would be quite angry; but she wasn't. She bit her lips first; and
+then gave a great sigh--such a wild, sweet sigh--and then she
+knelt down and hid her face on Neith's knees. Then Neith smiled a
+little, and was moved.
+
+ISABEL. Oh, I am so glad!
+
+L. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with a flower of white
+lotus; and St. Barbara sobbed once or twice, and then said: "If
+you only could see how beautiful it is, and how much it makes
+people feel what is good and lovely; and if you could only hear
+the children singing in the Lady chapels!" And Neith smiled,--but
+still sadly,--and said, "How do you know what I have seen, or
+heard, my love? Do you think all those vaults and towers of yours
+have been built without me? There was not a pillar in your
+Giotto's Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by my
+spear-shaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and flame work which has
+set your little heart on fire, is all vanity; and you will see
+what it will come to, and that soon; and none will grieve for it
+more than I. And then every one will disbelieve your pretty
+symbols and types. Men must be spoken simply to, my dear, if you
+would guide them kindly, and long." But St. Barbara answered,
+that, "Indeed she thought every one liked her work," and that "the
+people of 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 with
+your building as with mine." But Neith answered, "I will not
+contend with you, my dear. I strive not with those who love me;
+and for those who hate me, it is not well to strive with me, as
+weaver Arachne knows. And remember, child, that nothing is ever
+done beautifully, which is done in rivalship; nor nobly, which is
+done in pride."
+
+Then St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said she was very
+sorry she had been so foolish; and kissed Neith; and stood
+thinking a minute: and then her eyes got bright again, and she
+said, she would go directly and build a chapel with five windows
+in it; four for the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility,
+in the middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly laughed
+quite out, I thought; certainly her beautiful lips lost all their
+sternness for an instant; then she said, "Well, love, build it,
+but do not put so many 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 consecrate 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
+perhaps it was only after the glittering of St. Barbara's
+embroidered train: and I tried to make out the figures in Neith's
+web, and confused myself among them, as one always does in dreams;
+and then the dream changed altogether, and I found myself, all at
+once, among a crowd of little Gothic and Egyptian spirits, who
+were 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
+a while I began to understand what the matter was. It seemed that
+some of the troublesome building imps, who meddle and make
+continually, even in the best Gothic work, had been listening to
+St. Barbara's talk with Neith; and had made up their minds that
+Neith had no workpeople who could build against them. They were
+but dull imps, as you may fancy by their thinking that; and never
+had done much, except disturbing the great Gothic building angels
+at their work, and playing tricks to each other; indeed, of late
+they had been living years and years, like bats, up under the
+cornices of Strasbourg and Cologne 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,
+chattering in German, like jackdaws, to show Neith's people what
+they could do. And they had found some of Neith's old workpeople
+somewhere near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on their
+knees; and abused them heartily: and Neith's people did not mind
+at first, but, after a while, they seemed to get tired of the
+noise; and one or two rose up slowly, and laid hold of their
+measuring rods, and said, "If St. Barbara's people liked to build
+with them, tower against pyramid, they would show them how to lay
+stones."
+
+Then the Gothic little spirits threw a great many double
+somersaults for joy; and put the tips of their tongues out 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, themselves. 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 Germans took three pieces, and began to
+build three spires directly; one large, and two little. And when
+the Egyptians saw they had fairly begun, they laid their
+foundation all round, of large square stones: and began to build,
+so steadily that they had like to have swallowed up the three
+little German spires. So when the Gothic spirits saw that, they
+built their spires leaning, like the tower of Pisa, that they
+might stick out at the side of the pyramid. And Neith's people
+stared at them; and thought it very clever, but very wrong; and on
+they went, in their own way, and said nothing. Then the little
+Gothic spirits were terribly provoked because they could not spoil
+the shape of the 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 elbows on their knees, and stuck themselves
+out as far as they could, and made more faces; but that did no
+good, neither. Then they looked up to the sky, and opened their
+mouths wide, and gobbled, and said it was too hot for work, and
+wondered when it would rain; but that did no good, neither. And
+all the while the Egyptian spirits were laying step above step
+patiently. But when the Gothic ones looked, and saw how big 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 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 galleries for them
+to run round by; and so up again; with finer and finer work, till
+the Egyptians wondered whether they meant the thing for a tower or
+a pillar: and I heard them saying to one another, "It was nearly
+as pretty as lotus stalks; and if it were not for the ugly faces,
+there would be a fine temple, if they were going to build it all
+with pillars as big as that!" But in a minute afterwards,--just as
+the Gothic spirits had carried their 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 imps rose out of it
+like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud; but screaming worse
+than any puffins you ever heard: and down came the tower, all in a
+piece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the flank of
+the pyramid; against which it snapped short off. And of course
+that waked me.
+
+MARY. What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have
+told us about Gothic architecture!
+
+L. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you
+know that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or
+abolished more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies.
+Besides, even in its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes
+of this kind. I have stood too often, mourning, by the grand
+fragment of the apse of Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt
+into me. Still, you must have seen, surely, that these imps were
+of the Flamboyant school; or, at least, of the German schools
+correspondent with it in extravagance.
+
+MARY. But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all
+this?
+
+L. Here; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it
+is 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 themselves,
+at the same time, on the same foundation; only they lean like the
+tower of Pisa, and come out obliquely at the side: and here is one
+great spire of quartz which seems as if it had been meant to stand
+straight up, a little way off; and then had fallen down against
+the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away. In reality, it has
+crystallized horizontally, and 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
+caprices--poor things!
+
+MARY. I thought they always looked as if they were either in play
+or in mischief! What trials have they?
+
+L. Trials much like our own. Sickness, and starvation; fevers, and
+agues, and palsy; oppression; and old age, and the necessity of
+passing 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 been made grave, not once, nor twice, to see
+that even crystals "cannot choose but be old" at last. It may be
+but a shallow proverb of the Justice's; but it is a shrewdly wide
+one.
+
+DORA (pensive for once). I suppose it is very dreadful to be old!
+But then (brightening again), what should we do without our dear
+old friends, and our nice old lecturers?
+
+L. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little as one I know
+of;--
+
+DORA. And if they all meant as little what they say, would they
+not deserve it? But we'll come--we'll come, and cry.
+
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE 9.
+
+CRYSTAL SORROWS
+
+
+Working Lecture in Schoolroom.
+
+L. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if crystals might
+live, and play, and quarrel, and behave ill or well, according to
+their characters, without 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. If 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 prettiest of the very few
+pretty black things in the world, is called "Tourmaline." It may
+be transparent, and green, or red, as well as black; and then no
+stone can be prettier (only, all the light that gets into it, I
+believe, comes out a good deal the worse; and is not itself again
+for a long while). But this is the commonest state of it,--opaque,
+and as black as jet.
+
+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 today, and it doesn't signify and there's potash,
+and soda, and, on the whole, the chemistry of it is more like a
+mediaeval doctor's prescription, than the making of a respectable
+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 fragment
+keeping the line of the original crystal, while the quartz fills
+up the intervening spaces Now tourmaline has a trick of doing
+this, more than any other mineral I know here is another bit which
+I picked up on the glacier of Macugnaga; it is broken, like a
+pillar built of very flat broad stones, into about thirty joints,
+and all these are heaved and warped away from each other sideways,
+almost into a line of steps, and then all is tilled up with quartz
+paste. And here, lastly is a green Indian piece, in which the
+pillar is first disjointed, and then wrung round into the shape of
+an S.
+
+MARY. How CAN this have been done?
+
+L. There are a thousand ways in which it may have been done, the
+difficulty is not to account for the doing of it, but for the
+showing of it in some crystals and not in others You never by any
+chance get a quartz crystal broken or twisted in this way. If it
+break or twist at all which it does sometimes, like the spire of
+Dijon, it is by its own will or fault, it never seems to have been
+passively crushed But, for the forces which cause this passive
+ruin of the tourmaline,--here is a stone which will show you
+multitudes of them in operation at once It is known as "biecciated
+agate," beautiful, as you see, and highly valued as a pebble yet,
+so far as I can read or hear no one has ever looked at it with the
+least attention At the first glance, you see it is made of very
+fine red striped agates, which have been broken into small pieces,
+and fastened together again by paste also of agate There would be
+nothing wonderful in this, if this were all. It is well known that
+by the movements of strata, portions of rock are often shattered
+to pieces:--well known also that agate is a deposit of flint by
+water under certain conditions of heat and pressure: there is,
+therefore, nothing wonderful in an agate's being broken; and
+nothing wonderful in its being mended with the solution out of
+which it was itself originally congealed. And with this
+explanation, most people, looking at a brecciated agate, or
+brecciated anything, seem to be satisfied. I was so myself, for
+twenty years; but, lately happening to stay for some time at the
+Swiss Baden, where the beach of the Limmat is almost wholly
+composed of brecciated limestones, I began to examine them
+thoughtfully; and perceived, in the end, that they were, one and
+all, knots of as rich mystery as any poor little human brain was
+ever lost in. That piece of agate in your hand, Mary, will show
+you many of the common phenomena of breccias; but you need not
+knit your brows over it in that way; depend upon it, neither you
+nor I shall ever know anything about the way it was made, as long
+as we live.
+
+DORA. That does not seem much to depend upon.
+
+L. Pardon me, puss. When once we gain some real notion of the
+extent and unconquerableness of our ignorance, it is a very broad
+and restful thing to depend upon: you can throw yourself upon it
+at ease, as on a cloud, to feast with the gods. You do not
+thenceforward trouble yourself,--nor any one else,--with theories,
+or the contradiction of theories; you neither get headache nor
+heart-burning and you nevermore waste your poor little store of
+strength or allowance of time.
+
+However, there are certain facts, about this agate-making, which I
+can tell you; and then you may look at it in a pleasant wonder as
+long as you like, pleasant wonder is no loss of time.
+
+First, then, it is not broken freely by a blow; it is slowly
+wrung, or ground, to pieces. You can only with extreme dimness
+conceive the force exerted on mountains in transitional states of
+movement. You have all read a little geology; and you know how
+coolly geologists talk of mountains being raised or depressed.
+They talk coolly of it, because they are accustomed to the fact;
+but the very universality of the fact prevents us from ever
+conceiving distinctly the conditions of force involved. You know I
+was living last year in Savoy; my house was on the back of a
+sloping mountain, which rose gradually for two miles behind it;
+and then fell at once in a great precipice 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' biscuits 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 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 thousand feet, grinding against the other as it
+rose,--and you will have some idea of the making of the Mont
+Saleve.
+
+MAY. But it must crush the rocks all to dust!
+
+L. No; for there is no room for dust. The 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 essentially a styptic power, and wherever the earth is torn,
+it heals and binds; nay, the torture and grieving of the earth
+seem necessary to bring out its full energy; for you only find the
+crystalline living power fully in action, where the rents and
+faults are deep and many.
+
+DORA. If you please, sir,--would you 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 smoothly, is interrupted
+by another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it
+out, so that it has to begin again in another place--that is
+called a fault. _I_ always think it ought to be called the fault
+of the vein that interrupts it; but the miners always call it the
+fault of the vein that is interrupted.
+
+DORA. So it is, if it 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
+magnificence, you will nearly always find it owing to some
+dislocation of this kind; but the point of chief wonder to me is
+the delicacy of the touch by which these gigantic rents have been
+apparently accomplished. Note, however, that we have no clear
+evidence, hitherto, of the time taken to produce any of them. We
+know that a change of temperature alters the position and the
+angles of the atoms of crystals, and also the entire bulk of
+rocks. We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part of all
+subterranean, action, temperatures are continually changing, and
+therefore masses of rock must be expanding or contracting, with
+infinite slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must
+result in mechanical strain somewhere, both in their own
+substance, and in that of the rocks surrounding them; and we can
+form no conception of the result of irresistible pressure, applied
+so as to rend and raise, with imperceptible slowness of gradation,
+masses thousands of feet in thickness. We want some experiments
+tried on masses of iron and stone; and we can't get them tried,
+because Christian creatures never will seriously and sufficiently
+spend money, except to find out the shortest ways of killing each
+other. But, besides this 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 limestone, and the fault itself
+is filled up with a red breccia, formed of the crushed fragments
+of the torn rock, cemented by a rich red crystalline paste. I have
+had the piece I cut from it smoothed, and polished across the
+junction; here it is; and you may now pass your soft little
+fingers over the surface, without so much as feeling the place
+where a rock which all the hills of England might have been sunk
+in the body of, and not a summit seen, was torn asunder through
+that whole thickness, as a thin dress is torn when you tread upon
+it.
+
+(The audience examine the stone, and touch it timidly, but the
+matter remains inconceivable to them.)
+
+MARY (struck by the beauty of the stone). But this is almost
+marble?
+
+L. It is quite marble. And another singular point in the business,
+to my mind, is that these stones, which men have been cutting into
+slabs, for thousands of years, to ornament their principal
+buildings with,--and which, under the general name of "marble,"
+have been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of architecture,
+among all civilized nations,--are precisely those on which the
+signs and brands of these earth agonies have been chiefly struck;
+and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is
+not the record of their ancient torture. What a boundless capacity
+for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the human mind!
+Fancy reflective beings, who cut and polish stones for three
+thousand years, for the sake of the pretty stains upon them; and
+educate themselves to an art at last (such as it is), of imitating
+these veins by dexterous painting; and never a curious soul of
+them, all that while, asks, "What painted the rocks?"
+
+(The audience look dejected, and ashamed of themselves.)
+
+The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through our lives;
+and it is only by pinching ourselves very hard that we ever come
+to see, or understand, anything. At least, it is not always we who
+pinch ourselves; sometimes other people pinch us; which I suppose
+is very good of them,--or other things, which I suppose is very
+proper of them. But it is a sad life; made up chiefly of naps and
+pinches.
+
+(Some of the audience, on this, appearing to think that the others
+require pinching, 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 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 contains, 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 fragments themselves, and
+subject to continual change, either in the intensity of its own
+power, or in the nature of the materials submitted to it;--so
+that, at one time, gravity acts upon them, and disposes them in
+horizontal layers, or causes them to droop in stalactites; and at
+another, gravity is entirely defied, and the substances in
+solution are 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 18th dynasty, which contains in magnificent breccia (agates
+and jaspers imbedded in porphyry), out of which it is hewn,
+material for the thought of years; and record of the earth-sorrow
+of ages in comparison with the duration of which, the Egyptian
+letters tell us but the history of the evening and morning of a
+day.
+
+Agates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their past
+history, but all crystallization goes on under, and partly
+records, circumstances of this kind--circumstances of infinite
+variety, but always involving difficulty, interruption, and change
+of condition at different times. Observe, first, you have the
+whole mass of the rock in motion, either contracting itself, and
+so gradually widening the cracks, or being compressed, and thereby
+closing them, and crushing their edges,--and, if one part of its
+substance be softer, at the given temperature, than another,
+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
+substance;--by capillary attraction when they are fine,--by that
+of pure vacuity when they are larger, or by changes in the
+constitution and condensation of the mixed gases with which they
+have been originally filled. Those gases themselves may be
+supplied in all variation of volume and power from below; or,
+slowly, by the decomposition of the rocks themselves; and, at
+changing temperatures, must exert relatively changing forces of
+decomposition and combination on the walls of the veins they fill;
+while water, at every degree of heat and pressure (from beds of
+everlasting ice, alternate with cliffs of native rock, to volumes
+of red hot, or white hot, steam), congeals, and drips, and throbs,
+and thrills, from crag to crag; and breathes from pulse to pulse
+of foaming or fiery arteries, whose beating is felt through chains
+of the great islands of the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift
+your bracelets, and makes whole kingdoms of the world quiver in
+deadly earthquake, as if they were light as aspen leaves. And,
+remember, the poor little crystals have to live their lives, and
+mind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as best they
+may. They are wonderfully like human creatures,--forget all that
+is going on if they don't see it, however dreadful; and never
+think what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving,
+and indolent or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no
+thought whatever of the 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 interest. You will see crowds of unfortunate little
+crystals, who have been forced to constitute 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 decomposition; so that
+one doesn't know what will become of them. And sometimes you will
+see deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are
+deadly to all near them; and sometimes you will see deceitful
+crystals, that seem flint-edged, like our little quartz-crystal of
+a housekeeper here (hush! Dora), and are endlessly gentle and true
+wherever gentleness 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 up their living, and learn manners where they can. And
+sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like
+great capitalists and little laborers; and politico-economic
+crystals teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat
+each other; and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise ones;
+and impatient crystals spoiling the plans of patient ones,
+irreparably; just as things go on in the world. And sometimes you
+may see hypocritical crystals taking the shape of others, though
+they are nothing like in their minds; and vampire 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 themselves, resolutely to attack, or resolutely to
+defend. And for the close, you see the broad shadow and deadly
+force of inevitable fate, above all this: you see the multitudes
+of crystals whose time has come; not a set time, as with us, but
+yet a time, sooner or later, when they all must give up their
+crystal ghosts:--when the strength by which they grew, and the
+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 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: at least, the evidence
+tends to show that there is much more pleasure than pain, as soon
+as sensation becomes possible.
+
+LUCILLA. But then, surely, if we are told that it is pain, it must
+be pain?
+
+L. Yes; if we are told; and told in the way you mean, Lucilla; but
+nothing is said of the 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 ordinary sense. But wait
+till to-morrow to ask me about this. To-morrow is to be kept for
+questions and difficulties; let us keep to the plain facts to-day.
+There is yet one group of facts connected with this rending of the
+rocks, which I especially want you to notice. You know, when you
+have mended a very old dress, quite meritoriously, till it won't
+mend any more--
+
+EGYPT (interrupting). Could not you sometimes take gentlemen's
+work to illustrate by?
+
+L. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, Egypt; and when
+it is useful, girls cannot easily understand it.
+
+DORA. I am sure we should understand it better than gentlemen
+understand about sewing.
+
+L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction,
+when I touch upon matters of the kind too high for me; and
+besides, I never intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of
+sewing;--though you always seem to think I am laughing at you. In
+all seriousness, illustrations from sewing are those which Neith
+likes me best to use; and which young ladies ought to like
+everybody to use. What do you think the beautiful word "wife"
+comes from?
+
+DORA (tossing 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,
+instead of their dreadful "femme." But what do you think it comes
+from?
+
+DORA. I never did think about it.
+
+L. Nor you, Sibyl?
+
+SIBYL. No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there.
+
+L. Yes, but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do
+mean something. Wife means "weaver". You have all the right to
+call yourselves little "housewives," when you sew neatly.
+
+DORA. But I don t think we want to call ourselves 'little
+housewives'.
+
+L. You must either be house-wives, or house-moths; remember that.
+In the deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and
+embroider them, or feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had
+better let me keep my sewing illustration, and help me out with
+it.
+
+DORA. Well, we'll hear it, under protest.
+
+L. You have heard it before, but with reference to other matters.
+When it is said, "no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old
+garment, else it taketh from the old," does it not mean that the
+new piece tears the old one away at the sewn edge?
+
+DORA. Yes; certainly.
+
+L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with 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 material the rock can
+find; and often literally with threads; for the gradually opening
+rent seems to draw the substance it is filled with into 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 supplementary vein--often three or four
+successively--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 exposed to the weather, the fine
+fibrous structure is shown: and, more than that, you see the
+threads have been all twisted and pulled aside, this way and the
+other, by the warpings and shifting of the sides of the vein as it
+widened.
+
+MARY. It is wonderful! But is that going on still? Are the
+mountains being torn and sewn together again at this moment?
+
+L. Yes, certainly, my dear: but I think, just as certainly (though
+geologists differ on this matter), not with the violence, or on
+the scale, of their ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to
+be tending towards a condition of at least temporary rest; and
+that groaning and travailing of the 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.
+
+DORA. They shall all be dressed in their very best; and curtsey as
+they come in.
+
+L. No, no, Dora; no curtseys, if you please. I had enough of them
+the day you all took a fit of reverence, and curtsied 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 make something, 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 do know their own minds, as you
+do yourselves.
+
+DORA. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow
+so much as that girls had any minds to know.
+
+L. They will at least admit 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
+
+
+Evening. The fireside. L's arm-chair in the comfortablest corner.
+
+L. (perceiving various arrangements being made of footstool,
+cushion, screen, and the like.) Yes, yes, it's all very fine! and
+I am to sit here to be asked questions till supper-time, am I?
+
+DORA. I don't think you can have any supper to-night:--we've got
+so much to ask.
+
+LILY. Oh, Miss Dora! We can fetch it him here, you know, so
+nicely!
+
+L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with competitive examination
+going on over one's plate: the competition being among the
+examiners. Really, now that I know what teasing things girls are,
+I don't so much wonder that people used to put up patiently with
+the dragons who took THEM for supper. But I can't help myself, I
+suppose;--no thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll
+answer as civilly as may be.
+
+DORA. We don't so much care about being answered civilly, as about
+not being asked things back again.
+
+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 understand how much you are in play, and how much in
+earnest. That's the first thing.
+
+L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how much I am in
+earnest. The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle you. They look
+as if they were alive, and make me speak as if they were; and I do
+not in the least know how much truth there is in the appearance.
+I'm not to ask things back again to-night, but all questions of
+this sort lead necessarily to the one main question, which we
+asked, before, in vain, "What is it to be alive?"
+
+DORA. Yes; but we want to come back to that: for we've been
+reading scientific books about the "conservation of forces," and
+it seems all so grand, and wonderful; and the experiments are so
+pretty; and I suppose it must be all right: but then the books
+never speak as if there were any such thing as "life."
+
+L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, certainly, Dora; but
+they are beautifully right as far as they go; and life is not a
+convenient element to deal with. They seem to have been getting
+some of it into and out of bottles, in their "ozone" and
+"antizone" lately; but they still know little of it: and,
+certainly, I know less.
+
+DORA. You promised not to be provoking, to-night.
+
+L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know less of the secrets
+of life than the philosophers do; I yet know one corner of ground
+on which we artists can, stand, literally as "Life Guards" at bay,
+as steadily as the Guards at Inkermann; however hard the
+philosophers push. And you may stand with us, if once you learn to
+draw nicely.
+
+DORA. I'm sure we are all trying! but tell us where we may stand.
+
+L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. To a painter, the
+essential character of anything is the form of it, and the
+philosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for
+instance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific
+energy (or whatever else they like to call it), in a tea-kettle as
+in a Gier-eagle. Very good; that is so; and it is very
+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 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 business. The kettle chooses to sit still on
+the hob, the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of the
+choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfillment of
+it, which appears to us the more interesting circumstance--though
+the other is very interesting too. Exceedingly so! Don't laugh
+children, the philosophers have been doing quite splendid work
+lately, in their own way especially, the transformation of force
+into light is a great piece of systematized discovery and this
+notion about the sun 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 gunlock,--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, forever, and you will not knock out what we can. Here is a bit
+of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single
+hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out
+the head of the Apollo of Clazomenas. It is merely a matter of
+form; but if any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary
+system to hammer with, can hit out such another bit of silver as
+this,--we will take off our hats to you. For the present, we keep
+them on."
+
+MARY. Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I don't think we
+shall any of us like having only form to depend upon.
+
+L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear.
+
+MARY. It does not seem to separate us from the dust of the ground.
+It is that breathing of the life which we want to understand.
+
+L. So you should: but hold fast to the form, and defend that
+first, as distinguished from the mere transition of forces.
+Discern the molding hand of the potter commanding the clay, from
+his merely beating foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find
+incense, in the vase, afterwards,--well: but it is curious how far
+mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. For instance,
+with regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force--
+light;--they never consider how far the existence of it depends on
+the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the
+formal arrangement which we call an eye. The German philosophers
+began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling us,
+there was no such thing--as light at all, unless we chose to see
+it: now, German and English, both, have reversed their engines,
+and insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is,
+though nobody could ever see it. The fact being that the force
+must be there, and the eyes there; and "light" means the effect of
+the one on the other;--and perhaps, also--(Plato saw farther into
+that mystery than any one has since, that I know of),--on
+something a little way within the eyes; but we may stand quite
+safe, close behind the retina, and defy the philosophers.
+
+SIBYL. But I don't care so much about defying the philosophers, if
+only one could get a clear idea of life, or soul, for one's self.
+
+L. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, in that cave of
+yours, than any of us. I was just going to ask you about
+inspiration, and the golden bough, and the like; only I remembered
+I was not to ask anything. But, will not you, at least, tell us
+whether the ideas of Life, as the power of putting things
+together, or "making" them; and of Death, as the power of pushing
+things separate, or "unmaking" them, may not be very simply held
+in balance against each other?
+
+SIBYL. No, I am not in my cave to-night; and cannot tell you
+anything.
+
+L. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a great separator; it is
+little more than the expansion of Moliere's great sentence, "Il
+s'ensuit de la, que tout ce qu'ily a de beau 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 ascended.
+
+L Yes, I believed the Aiguille Verte would have held its own. But
+do you recollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, when he first
+felt sure of reaching the summit.
+
+SIBYL. Yes, it was, "Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous etes morte, vous
+etes morte!"
+
+L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. Now, can you at
+all fancy the difference between that feeling of triumph in a
+mountain's death; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in its
+life--
+
+"Quantus Athos, aut quantus 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 carekeepers may know about it.
+
+MAY. I'll try then to?
+
+L. No Dryden is a far way 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 themselves to it that they may please themselves with
+passion; for then they are no longer pure: but if, continually
+seeking and accepting the truth as far as it is discernible, they
+trust their Maker for the integrity of the instincts. He has
+gifted them with, and rest in the sense of a higher truth which
+they cannot demonstrate, I think they will be most in the right,
+so.
+
+DORA and JESSIE (clapping their hands). Then we really may believe
+that the mountains are living?
+
+L. You may at least earnestly believe that the presence of the
+spirit which culminates in your own life, shows itself in dawning,
+wherever the dust of the earth begins to assume any orderly and
+lovely state. You will find it impossible to separate this idea of
+gradated manifestation from that of the vital power. Things 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
+egg, than the calyx to the blossom. It bursts at last; but it
+never lives as the corolla does. It may fall at the moment its
+task is fulfilled, as in the poppy; or wither gradually, as in the
+buttercup; 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 organism. We know no
+higher or more energetic life than our own; but there seems to me
+this great good in the idea of gradation 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 anthill, 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
+goddesses, 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 difficulty 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; 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 which you are likely to be
+interested, has three distinct characters:--
+
+I. It has a physical character. It represents some of the great
+powers or objects of nature--sun or moon, or heaven, or the winds,
+or the sea. And the fables first related 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 represents, in its history,
+the moral dealings of God with man. Thus Apollo is first,
+physically, the sun contending with darkness; but morally, the
+power of divine life contending with corruption. Athena is,
+physically, the air; morally, the breathing of the divine spirit
+of wisdom. Neptune is, physically, the sea; morally, the supreme
+power of agitating passion; and so on.
+
+III. It has, at last, a personal character; and is realized in the
+minds of its worshipers as a living spirit, with whom men may
+speak face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.
+
+Now it is impossible to define exactly, how far, at any period of
+a national religion, these three ideas are mingled; or how far 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 imagination in its successive phases. For the
+question is not at all what a mythological figure meant in its
+origin; but what it became in each subsequent mental development
+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 and 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 climate of alternate storm and calm, represented the
+wild fringes of the storm-cloud by the serpents of her aegis; and
+the lightning and cold of the highest thunderclouds, by the Gorgon
+on her shield: while morally, the same types represented to him
+the mystery and changeful terror of knowledge, as her spear and
+helm its ruling and defensive power. And no study can be more
+interesting, 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, in 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 imagined 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
+described in the book of your own religion;--their personality,
+observe, as distinguished from merely symbolical visions. For
+instance, 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 Zachariah
+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 personality begins to force itself upon you. And though
+you might, in a dull 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 conceive of him as a real and living angel. And when you
+look back from the vision of the Apocalypse to the account of the
+destruction 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, Manoah, or Mary.
+
+Now, when you have once consented to this 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 kingly pride. You find
+another (or perhaps the same) agency, made visible to a Christian
+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 expressed 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 justice, was recognized in
+the chastisement, called also "Physician" or "Healer"? If you feel
+hesitation in admitting the possibility of such a manifestation, I
+believe you 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 reading 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 satisfied with us, think you, if we read
+His words, merely for the sake of an entirely meaningless poetical
+sensation?
+
+LUCILLA. But do not the people who give themselves to seek out the
+meaning of these things, often get very strange, and extravagant?
+
+L. More than that, Lucilla. They often go mad. That abandonment of
+the mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very thing
+I have been pleading with you against. I never said you should set
+yourself 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 well take to
+repeating Paters at once; for it is surely wiser to repeat one
+thing we understand, than read a thousand which we cannot).
+Either, therefore, acknowledge the passages 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 assure you, strange as it may seem, our scorn of
+Greek tradition depends, not on our belief, but our disbelief, of
+our own traditions. 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
+multitudinous ministry of living angels, infinitely varied in rank
+and power. You all know one expression of the purest and happiest
+form of such faith, as it exists in modern times, in Richter's
+lovely illustrations of the Lord's Prayer. The real and living
+death-angel, girt as a pilgrim, for journey, and softly crowned
+with flowers, 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 pillows;
+carry the sound of the church bells for them far through the air;
+and even descending lower in service, fill little cups with honey,
+to hold out to the weary bee. By the way, Lily, did you tell the
+other children 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 forgot.
+
+LILY. She is not quite three; but she has such odd little old
+ways, sometimes.
+
+L. And she was very fond of Alice?
+
+LILY. Yes; Alice was so good to her always!
+
+L. And so when Alice went away?
+
+LILY. Oh, it was nothing, you know, to 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 me, 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, "Oh, 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
+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
+imagination 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 mocking
+spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes of angels, 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 Mythology 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 better 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
+extenuating circumstances."
+
+MAY. Was that really possible?
+
+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 depend 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 is 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 [Footnote: Notes vi.] among us.
+
+In "Galignani" of July 21-22, 1862, is reported a trial of a
+farmer's son in the department 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 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 know, 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 humble thoughts of ourselves and our creeds.
+
+We owe to the Greeks every noble discipline in literature, every
+radical principle of art; and every form of convenient beauty in
+our household furniture and daily occupations of life. We are
+unable, ourselves, to make rational use of half that we have
+received from them: and, of our own, we have nothing but
+discoveries in science, and fine mechanical adaptations of the
+discovered 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 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 true 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 neighbors' creed kindly, in proportion to the
+substantial 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 gracious effort you will double, treble--nay, indefinitely
+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 graves, through the gathering darkness, and communicable
+cold.
+
+MARY (after 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 together, 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 attributed 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 gaining delta of the stream of the Muotta-
+Thal, 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 impression 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 clue 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 conviction 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 to 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 permanence. The soft white
+sediments of the 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 inland river, or stagnant
+slime of inland pool and lake, divides, or resolves itself as it
+dries, into layers of its several elements; slowly purifying 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 perennial 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.
+
+(The children seem pleased, but more inclined 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 to 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?
+
+MARY. 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 first law of the
+universe, and the other name of life, is therefore, 'help'. The
+other name of death is 'separation'. Government and cooperation
+are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and
+competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.
+
+"Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take
+of the nature and power of consistence, 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 fighting
+for place at every tread of your foot, sand squeezing 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 that their atoms may get into the closest relations
+possible.
+
+"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 porcelain,
+and painted on, and be kept 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 clear;
+not only clear, but hard; nor only clear and hard, but so set that
+it can deal with light in a wonderful 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 becomes, first, a white
+earth; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges
+itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have
+the power of reflecting, 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 whatsoever. We call it then
+an opal.
+
+"In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white
+at first; but, instead of being discouraged, 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 dewdrop: but if we insist on
+its proceeding to a more perfect 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, set 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 work and play of these past days, I would have
+you gain at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming
+trouble,--the unquestionable degradation,--of the elements 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 despised, 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 revelation, 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE I.
+
+Page 26.
+
+
+"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 traditions 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 terminates as the Old
+Lecturer's real endeavors to the same end always have terminated.
+There are, however, 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," contains, in a pleasant
+form, as much information as young readers will usually need.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE II.
+
+Page 27.
+
+
+"Pyramid of Asychis?"
+
+THIS pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the
+shame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously, 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 me."
+
+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 speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or
+leader, in speaking 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
+inspired builders.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE III.
+
+Page 29.
+
+
+"The Greater Pthah."
+
+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
+less represents the formative power of order and measurement he
+always stands on a four-square pedestal, "the Egyptian cubit,
+metaphorically 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 Philas, is represented as
+holding an egg on a potter's wheel; but I do not know if this
+symbol occurs in older sculptures. His usual title is the "Lord of
+Truth". Others, very beautiful "King of the Two Worlds, of
+Gracious Countenance," "Superintendent of the Great Abode," etc.,
+are given by Mr. Birch in Arundale's "Gallery of Antiquities,"
+which I suppose is the book of best authority easily accessible.
+For the full titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as
+yet the only--and I believe, still a very questionable--authority,
+and 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 illustration
+(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: the plates in Arundale's book are
+laboriously faithful: but the expressions of both face and body in
+a figure depend merely on emphasis of touch, and, in barbaric art
+most draughtsmen emphasize what they plainly 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 office, is sufficiently 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 in new development, and,
+even as it was, I cannot conceive that the Egyptians should have
+regarded their beetle headed image of him (Champollion,
+"Pantheon," p. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the most
+painful 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 demon of indolence.
+
+Pasht (p. 27, line 9) is connected with the Greek Artemis,
+especially in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She is
+usually lioness headed, sometimes cat headed, her attributes
+seeming often trivial or ludicrous unless their full meaning is
+known, but the inquiry 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 always 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 association. 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. 31, line 12), is the Recording Angel of Judgment; and
+the Greek Hermes--Phre (line 16), 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 connection 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 little, 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
+endeavored farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture, 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 Aeolus) 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 intervention of
+Aeolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral authority over
+calmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles, as she
+incites Tydides; her physical 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 Diomed; 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 returned 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
+affections; and, in Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, which
+is the real root of his passionate anger Ulysses is her favorite
+chiefly in her office as the goddess of conduct and design.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE IV.
+
+Page 81.
+
+
+"Geometrical limitations."
+
+IT is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full
+illustration, to express the complete relations of crystalline
+structure, 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 useful, if kept broadly in mind; and the
+transitions of state 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 nascent states of
+silica, I have made no allusion in this volume 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 segregation, combined with mysterious
+brokenly-zoned structures, like those of some malachites. I hope
+some day to know more of these and several other mineral phenomena
+(especially of those connected with the relative sizes of
+crystals), which otherwise I should have endeavored 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 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
+Natahbus, 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 227.
+
+
+"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 it don't mind: I was
+glad you stopped her, and yet sorry, for she wanted so much to ask
+about the Valley of Diamonds 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 yourself, should
+be the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.
+
+SIBYL. And yet how often you complain of other people for not
+saying what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three
+stone steps to purgatory, 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
+so I speak it as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you
+like of the serpent 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,
+might 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 have 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 power of riches; so that thus they are singing
+serpents. And the worms are the souls of the common money getters
+and traffickers, who do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain
+habitually by the distress or foolishness of others (as you see
+the butchers have been gaining out of the panic at the cattle
+plague, among the poor),--so they are made to eat the dark leaves,
+and spin, and perish.
+
+SIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress
+the poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where
+are they?
+
+L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the
+gold, and make the grave dust of the valley I believe so, at
+least, for no one ever sees those souls anywhere.
+
+(SIBYL ceases questioning.)
+
+ISABEL (who has crept up to her side without any one seeing). Oh,
+Sibyl, please ask him about the fireflies!
+
+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?
+
+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 who is staying
+here, and she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the
+fireflies, and we both want to know so 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, unpursued vanities, which yet
+blind us, confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late
+into Siena, the fireflies were flying high on a stormy sirocco
+wind,--the stars themselves no brighter, and all their host
+seeming, at moments, to fade as the insects faded.
+
+
+
+
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ethics of the Dust, by John Ruskin
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