(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.