SIBYL. No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there.
L. Yes, but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do
mean something. Wife means "weaver". You have all the right to
call yourselves little "housewives," when you sew neatly.
DORA. But I don t think we want to call ourselves 'little
housewives'.
L. You must either be house-wives, or house-moths; remember that.
In the deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and
embroider them, or feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had
better let me keep my sewing illustration, and help me out with
it.
DORA. Well, we'll hear it, under protest.
L. You have heard it before, but with reference to other matters.
When it is said, "no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old
garment, else it taketh from the old," does it not mean that the
new piece tears the old one away at the sewn edge?
DORA. Yes; certainly.
L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with strong thread, does not
the whole edge come away sometimes, when it tears again?
DORA. Yes; and then it is of no use to mend it any more.
L. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that: but the same thing
happens to them continually. I told you they were full of rents,
or veins. Large masses of mountain are sometimes as full of veins
as your hand is; and of veins nearly as fine (only you know a rock
vein does not mean a tube, but a crack or cleft). Now these clefts
are mended, usually, with the strongest material the rock can
find; and often literally with threads; for the gradually opening
rent seems to draw the substance it is filled with into fibers,
which cross from one side of it to the other, and are partly
crystalline; so that, when the crystals become distinct, the
fissure has often exactly the look of a tear, brought together
with strong cross stitches. Now when this is completely done, and
all has been fastened and made firm, perhaps some new change of
temperature may occur, and the rock begin to contract again. Then
the old vein must open wider; or else another open elsewhere. If
the old vein widen, it MAY do so at its center; but it constantly
happens, with well filled veins, that the cross stitches are too
strong to break; the walls of the vein, instead, are torn away by
them: and another little supplementary vein--often three or four
successively--will be thus formed at the side of the first.
MARY. That is really very much like our work. But what do the
mountains use to sew with?
L. Quartz, whenever they can get it: pure limestones are obliged
to be content with carbonate of lime; but most mixed rocks can
find some quartz for themselves. Here is a piece of black slate
from the Buet: it looks merely like dry dark mud; you could not
think there was any quartz in it; but, you see, its rents are all
stitched together with beautiful white thread, which is the purest
quartz, so close drawn that you can break it like flint, in the
mass; but, where it has been exposed to the weather, the fine
fibrous structure is shown: and, more than that, you see the
threads have been all twisted and pulled aside, this way and the
other, by the warpings and shifting of the sides of the vein as it
widened.
MARY. It is wonderful! But is that going on still? Are the
mountains being torn and sewn together again at this moment?
L. Yes, certainly, my dear: but I think, just as certainly (though
geologists differ on this matter), not with the violence, or on
the scale, of their ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to
be tending towards a condition of at least temporary rest; and
that groaning and travailing of the creation, as, assuredly, not
wholly in pain, is not, in the full sense, "until now."
MARY. I want so much to ask you about that!
SIBYL. Yes; and we all want to ask you about a great many other
things besides.
L. It seems to me that you have got quite as many new ideas as are
good for any of you at present: and I should not like to burden
you with more; but I must see that those you have are clear, if I
can make them so; so we will have one more talk, for answer of
questions, mainly. Think over all the ground, and make your
difficulties thoroughly presentable. Then we'll see what we can
make of them.
DORA. They shall all be dressed in their very best; and curtsey as
they come in.
L. No, no, Dora; no curtseys, if you please. I had enough of them
the day you all took a fit of reverence, and curtsied me out of
the room.
DORA. But, you know, we cured ourselves of the fault, at once, by
that fit. We have never been the least respectful since. And the
difficulties will only curtsey themselves out of the room, I
hope;--come in at one door--vanish at the other.
L. What a pleasant world it would be, if all its difficulties were
taught to behave so! However, one can generally make something, or
(better still) nothing, or at least less of them, if they
thoroughly know their own minds; and your difficulties--I must say
that for you, children,--generally do know their own minds, as you
do yourselves.
DORA. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow
so much as that girls had any minds to know.