MARY. But surely this is ruin, not caprice?
L. I believe it is in great part misfortune; and we will examine
these crystal troubles in next lecture. But if you want to see the
gracefullest and happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you
must go to the Hartz; not that I ever mean to go there myself, for
I want to retain the romantic feeling about the name; and I have
done myself some harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy
form of the Brocken from the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the
mountains be picturesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as
I am told) teach the crystals in them, are incomparably pretty.
They work chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish-colored,
carbonate of lime; which comes out of a gray limestone. The
goblins take the greatest possible care of its education, and see
that nothing happens to it to hurt its temper; and when it may be
supposed to have arrived at the crisis which is to a well brought
up mineral, what presentation at court is to a young lady--after
which it is expected to set fashions--there's no end to its pretty
ways of behaving. First it will make itself into pointed darts as
fine as hoarfrost; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as
silk; here into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver;
as if for the gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful
little plates, for them to eat off; presently it is in towers
which they might be imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells,
where they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever
hear of them more; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn; here,
some in drifts, like snow; here, some in rays, like stars: and,
though these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the
mineral takes in other places, they are all taken here with such a
grace that you recognize the high caste and breeding of the
crystals wherever you meet them, and know at once they are Hartz-
born.
Of course, such fine things as these are only done by crystals
which are perfectly good, and good-humored; and of course, also,
there are ill-humored crystals who torment each other, and annoy
quieter crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious war.
Here (for once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tormenting a
peaceable octahedron of fluor, in mere caprice. I looked at it the
other night so long, and so wonderingly, just before putting my
candle out, that I fell into another strange dream. But you don't
care about dreams.
DORA. No; we didn't, yesterday; but you know we are made up of
caprice; so we do, to-day: and you must tell it us directly.
L. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still much in my mind;
and then, I had been looking over these Hartz things for you, and
thinking of the sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in
them with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern
architecture. So, when I fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and
St. Barbara talking together.
DORA. But what had St. Barbara to do with it?
L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good
architects; not St. Thomas, whatever the old builders thought. It
might be very fine, according to the monks' notions, in St.
Thomas, to give all his employer's money away to the poor: but
breaches of contract are bad foundations; and I believe, it was
not he, but St. Barbara, who overlooked the work in all the
buildings you and I care about. However that may be, it was
certainly she whom I saw in my dream with Neith. Neith was sitting
weaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her shuttle
slowly; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff
little gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with
embroidery that it dazzled me whenever she moved; the train of it
was just like a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full
of corners, and so many-colored and bright. Her hair fell over her
shoulders in long, delicate waves, from under a little three
pinnacled crown, like a tower. She was asking Neith about the laws
of architecture in Egypt and Greece; and when Neith told her the
measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said she thought they would
have been better three-cornered and when Neith told her the
measures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought
to have had two transepts. But she was pleased when Neith told her
of the temple of the dew, and of the Caryan maidens bearing its
frieze: and then she thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear
what sort of temples she was building herself, in the French
valleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping,
just as one of you might to an old lady: and certainly she talked
in the sweetest way in the world to Neith; and explained to her
all about crockets and pinnacles: and Neith sat, looking very
grave; and always graver as St. Barbara went on; till at last, I'm
sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little.
MARY (very grave herself). "St. Barbara"?
L. Yes, Mary. Why shouldn't she? It was very tiresome of Neith to
sit looking like that.
MAY. But, then, St. Barbara was a saint!