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?