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.