DORA. Never in all our lives.
L. When a vein of rock which is going on smoothly, is interrupted
by another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it
out, so that it has to begin again in another place--that is
called a fault. _I_ always think it ought to be called the fault
of the vein that interrupts it; but the miners always call it the
fault of the vein that is interrupted.
DORA. So it is, if it does not begin again where it left off.
L. Well, that is certainly the gist of the business: but, whatever
good-natured old lecturers may do, the rocks have a bad habit,
when they are once interrupted, of never asking "Where was I?"
DORA. When the two halves of the dining-table came separate,
yesterday, was that a "fault"?
L. Yes; but not the table's. However, it is not a bad
illustration, Dora. When beds of rock are only interrupted by a
fissure, but remain at the same level, like the two halves of the
table, it is not called a fault, but only a fissure; but if one
half of the table be either tilted higher than the other, or
pushed to the side, so that the two parts will not fit, it is a
fault. You had better read the chapter on faults in Jukes's
Geology; then you will know all about it. And this rent that I am
telling you of in the Saleve, is one only of myriads, to which are
owing the forms of the Alps, as, I believe, of all great mountain
chains. Wherever you see a precipice on any scale of real
magnificence, you will nearly always find it owing to some
dislocation of this kind; but the point of chief wonder to me is
the delicacy of the touch by which these gigantic rents have been
apparently accomplished. Note, however, that we have no clear
evidence, hitherto, of the time taken to produce any of them. We
know that a change of temperature alters the position and the
angles of the atoms of crystals, and also the entire bulk of
rocks. We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part of all
subterranean, action, temperatures are continually changing, and
therefore masses of rock must be expanding or contracting, with
infinite slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must
result in mechanical strain somewhere, both in their own
substance, and in that of the rocks surrounding them; and we can
form no conception of the result of irresistible pressure, applied
so as to rend and raise, with imperceptible slowness of gradation,
masses thousands of feet in thickness. We want some experiments
tried on masses of iron and stone; and we can't get them tried,
because Christian creatures never will seriously and sufficiently
spend money, except to find out the shortest ways of killing each
other. But, besides this slow kind of pressure, there is evidence
of more or less sudden violence, on the same terrific scale; and,
through it all, the wonder, as I said, is always to me the
delicacy of touch. I cut a block of the Saleve limestone from the
edge of one of the principal faults which have formed the
precipice; it is a lovely compact limestone, and the fault itself
is filled up with a red breccia, formed of the crushed fragments
of the torn rock, cemented by a rich red crystalline paste. I have
had the piece I cut from it smoothed, and polished across the
junction; here it is; and you may now pass your soft little
fingers over the surface, without so much as feeling the place
where a rock which all the hills of England might have been sunk
in the body of, and not a summit seen, was torn asunder through
that whole thickness, as a thin dress is torn when you tread upon
it.
(The audience examine the stone, and touch it timidly, but the
matter remains inconceivable to them.)
MARY (struck by the beauty of the stone). But this is almost
marble?
L. It is quite marble. And another singular point in the business,
to my mind, is that these stones, which men have been cutting into
slabs, for thousands of years, to ornament their principal
buildings with,--and which, under the general name of "marble,"
have been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of architecture,
among all civilized nations,--are precisely those on which the
signs and brands of these earth agonies have been chiefly struck;
and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is
not the record of their ancient torture. What a boundless capacity
for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the human mind!
Fancy reflective beings, who cut and polish stones for three
thousand years, for the sake of the pretty stains upon them; and
educate themselves to an art at last (such as it is), of imitating
these veins by dexterous painting; and never a curious soul of
them, all that while, asks, "What painted the rocks?"
(The audience look dejected, and ashamed of themselves.)
The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through our lives;
and it is only by pinching ourselves very hard that we ever come
to see, or understand, anything. At least, it is not always we who
pinch ourselves; sometimes other people pinch us; which I suppose
is very good of them,--or other things, which I suppose is very
proper of them. But it is a sad life; made up chiefly of naps and
pinches.
(Some of the audience, on this, appearing to think that the others
require pinching, the LECTURER changes the subject.)
Now, however, for once, look at a piece of marble carefully, and
think about it. You see this is one side of the fault; the other
side is down or up, nobody knows where; but, on this side, you can
trace the evidence of the dragging and tearing action. All along
the edge of this marble, the ends of the fibers of the rock are
torn, here an inch, and there half an inch, away from each other;
and you see the exact places where they fitted, before they were
torn separate: and you see the rents are now all filled up with
the sanguine paste, full of the broken pieces of the rock; the
paste itself seems to have been half melted, and partly to have
also melted the edge of the fragments it contains, and then to
have crystallized with them, and round them. And the brecciated
agate I first showed you contains exactly the same phenomena; a
zoned crystallization going on amidst the cemented fragments,
partly altering the structure of those fragments themselves, and
subject to continual change, either in the intensity of its own
power, or in the nature of the materials submitted to it;--so
that, at one time, gravity acts upon them, and disposes them in
horizontal layers, or causes them to droop in stalactites; and at
another, gravity is entirely defied, and the substances in
solution are crystallized in bands of equal thickness on every
side of the cell. It would require a course of lectures longer
than these (I have a great mind,--you have behaved so saucily--to
stay and give them) to describe to you the phenomena of this kind,
in agates and chalcedonies only,--nay, there is a single
sarcophagus in the British Museum, covered with grand sculpture of
the 18th dynasty, which contains in magnificent breccia (agates
and jaspers imbedded in porphyry), out of which it is hewn,
material for the thought of years; and record of the earth-sorrow
of ages in comparison with the duration of which, the Egyptian
letters tell us but the history of the evening and morning of a
day.
Agates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their past
history, but all crystallization goes on under, and partly
records, circumstances of this kind--circumstances of infinite
variety, but always involving difficulty, interruption, and change
of condition at different times. Observe, first, you have the
whole mass of the rock in motion, either contracting itself, and
so gradually widening the cracks, or being compressed, and thereby
closing them, and crushing their edges,--and, if one part of its
substance be softer, at the given temperature, than another,
probably squeezing that softer substance out into the veins. Then
the veins themselves, when the rock leaves them open by its
contraction, act with various power of suction upon its
substance;--by capillary attraction when they are fine,--by that
of pure vacuity when they are larger, or by changes in the
constitution and condensation of the mixed gases with which they
have been originally filled. Those gases themselves may be
supplied in all variation of volume and power from below; or,
slowly, by the decomposition of the rocks themselves; and, at
changing temperatures, must exert relatively changing forces of
decomposition and combination on the walls of the veins they fill;
while water, at every degree of heat and pressure (from beds of
everlasting ice, alternate with cliffs of native rock, to volumes
of red hot, or white hot, steam), congeals, and drips, and throbs,
and thrills, from crag to crag; and breathes from pulse to pulse
of foaming or fiery arteries, whose beating is felt through chains
of the great islands of the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift
your bracelets, and makes whole kingdoms of the world quiver in
deadly earthquake, as if they were light as aspen leaves. And,
remember, the poor little crystals have to live their lives, and
mind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as best they
may. They are wonderfully like human creatures,--forget all that
is going on if they don't see it, however dreadful; and never
think what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving,
and indolent or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no
thought whatever of the lava or the flood which may break over
them any day; and evaporate them into air-bubbles, or wash them
into a solution of salts. And you may look at them, once
understanding the surrounding conditions of their fate, with an
endless interest. You will see crowds of unfortunate little
crystals, who have been forced to constitute themselves in a
hurry, their dissolving element being fiercely scorched away; you
will see them doing their best, bright and numberless, but tiny.
Then you will find indulged crystals, who have had centuries to
form themselves in, and have changed their mind and ways
continually; and have been tired, and taken heart again; and have
been sick, and got well again; and thought they would try a
different diet, and then thought better of it; and made but a poor
use of their advantages, after all. And others you will see, who
have begun life as wicked crystals; and then have been impressed
by alarming circumstances, and have become converted crystals, and
behaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen away again, and
ended, but discreditably, perhaps even in decomposition; so that
one doesn't know what will become of them. And sometimes you will
see deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are
deadly to all near them; and sometimes you will see deceitful
crystals, that seem flint-edged, like our little quartz-crystal of
a housekeeper here (hush! Dora), and are endlessly gentle and true
wherever gentleness and truth are needed. And sometimes you will
see little child-crystals put to school like school-girls, and
made to stand in rows; and taken the greatest care of, and taught
how to hold themselves up, and behave: and sometimes you will see
unhappy little child-crystals left to lie about in the dirt, and
pick up their living, and learn manners where they can. And
sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like
great capitalists and little laborers; and politico-economic
crystals teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat
each other; and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise ones;
and impatient crystals spoiling the plans of patient ones,
irreparably; just as things go on in the world. And sometimes you
may see hypocritical crystals taking the shape of others, though
they are nothing like in their minds; and vampire crystals eating
out the hearts of others; and hermit-crab crystals living in the
shells of others; and parasite crystals living on the means of
others; and courtier crystals glittering in attendance upon
others; and all these, besides the two great companies of war and
peace, who ally themselves, resolutely to attack, or resolutely to
defend. And for the close, you see the broad shadow and deadly
force of inevitable fate, above all this: you see the multitudes
of crystals whose time has come; not a set time, as with us, but
yet a time, sooner or later, when they all must give up their
crystal ghosts:--when the strength by which they grew, and the
breath given them to breathe, pass away from them; and they fail,
and are consumed, and vanish away; and another generation is
brought to life, framed out of their ashes.
MARY. It is very terrible. Is it not the complete fulfillment,
down into the very dust, of that verse: "The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain?"
L. I do not know that it is in pain, Mary: at least, the evidence
tends to show that there is much more pleasure than pain, as soon
as sensation becomes possible.
LUCILLA. But then, surely, if we are told that it is pain, it must
be pain?
L. Yes; if we are told; and told in the way you mean, Lucilla; but
nothing is said of the proportion to pleasure. Unmitigated pain
would kill any of us in a few hours; pain equal to our pleasures
would make us loathe life; the word itself cannot be applied to
the lower conditions of matter in its ordinary sense. But wait
till to-morrow to ask me about this. To-morrow is to be kept for
questions and difficulties; let us keep to the plain facts to-day.
There is yet one group of facts connected with this rending of the
rocks, which I especially want you to notice. You know, when you
have mended a very old dress, quite meritoriously, till it won't
mend any more--
EGYPT (interrupting). Could not you sometimes take gentlemen's
work to illustrate by?
L. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, Egypt; and when
it is useful, girls cannot easily understand it.
DORA. I am sure we should understand it better than gentlemen
understand about sewing.
L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction,
when I touch upon matters of the kind too high for me; and
besides, I never intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of
sewing;--though you always seem to think I am laughing at you. In
all seriousness, illustrations from sewing are those which Neith
likes me best to use; and which young ladies ought to like
everybody to use. What do you think the beautiful word "wife"
comes from?
DORA (tossing her head). I don't think it is a particularly
beautiful word.
L. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think "bride" sounds better;
but wife's the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word
in which the English and Latin languages conquer the French and
the Greek. I hope the French will some day get a word for it, yet,
instead of their dreadful "femme." But what do you think it comes
from?
DORA. I never did think about it.