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?