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.