The Ethics of the Dust Part 9

KATHLEEN. My goodness! (Takes up the stone again, very delicately; and drops it. General consternation.)

L. Never mind, Katie, you might drop it from the top of the house, and do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and as good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults, like other people, and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to a.s.sert anything energetically, I would a.s.sert it by "my badness," not "my goodness."

KATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!

L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my "too-badness." But you may as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look carefully at the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface, and here is a pretty white sapphire (essentially the same stone as the ruby), in which you will see the same lovely structure, like the threads of the finest white cobweb. I do not know what is the exact method of a ruby's construction, but you see by these lines, what fine construction there is, even in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually appears as a ma.s.sive lump or knot. There is therefore no real mineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, but, practically, crystallized ma.s.ses throw themselves into one of the three groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either as Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or fibers), they make the stones or rocks formed out of them "FIBROUS;" when they are in folia, they make them "FOLIATED;" when they are in knots (or grains), "GRANULAR." Fibrous rocks are comparatively rare, in ma.s.s; but fibrous minerals are innumerable; and it is often a question which really no one but a young lady could possibly settle, whether one should call the fibers composing them "threads" or "needles." Here is amianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton thread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bis.m.u.th, with sharper points and brighter l.u.s.ter than your finest needles have; and fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace; and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is red oxide of copper (you must not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some of the films of it off the stone), which is simply a woven tissue of scarlet silk. However, these finer thread-forms are comparatively rare, while the bolder and needle- like crystals occur constantly; so that, I believe, "Needle- crystal" is the best word (the grand one is, "Acicular crystal,"

but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily understood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf- crystals, as I said, form an immense ma.s.s of foliated rocks; and the Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form essentially granular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks; and it is always a point of more interest to me (and I think will ultimately be to you), to consider the causes which force a given mineral to take any one of these three general forms, than what the peculiar geometrical limitations are, belonging to its own crystals.

[Footnote: Note iv.] It is more interesting to me, for instance, to try and find out why the red oxide of copper, usually crystallizing in cubes or octahedrons, makes itself exquisitely, out of its cubes, into this red silk in one particular Cornish mine, than what are the absolutely necessary angles of the octahedron, which is its common form. At all events, that mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls'

strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners of crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the most curious teaching for you. For in the fulfillment, to the best of their power, of their adopted form under given circ.u.mstances, there are conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue; and indeed expressible under no term so proper as that of the Virtue, or Courage of crystals;--which, if you are not afraid of the crystals making you ashamed of yourselves, we will by to get some notion of, to-morrow. But it will be a bye-lecture, and more about yourselves than the minerals. Don't come unless you like.

MARY. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but we'll come, for all that.

L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying gla.s.ses; and see what thoughts will come into your little heads about them. For the best thoughts are generally those which come without being forced, one does not know how. And so I hope you will get through your wet day patiently.

LECTURE 5.

CRYSTAL VIRTUES

A quiet talk, in the afternoon, by the sunniest window of the Drawing-room. Present: FLORRIE, ISABEL, MAY, LUCILLA, KATHLEEN, DORA, MARY, and some others, who have saved time for the bye- Lecture.

L. So you have really come, like good girls, to be made ashamed of yourselves?

DORA (very meekly). No, we needn't be made so; we always are.

L. Well, I believe that's truer than most pretty speeches: but you know, you saucy girl, some people have more reason to be so than others. Are you sure everybody is, as well as you?

THE GENERAL VOICE. Yes, yes; everybody.

L. What! Florrie ashamed of herself?

(FLORRIE hides behind the curtain.)

L. And Isabel?

(ISABEL hides under the table.)

L. And Mary?

(MARY runs into the corner behind the piano.)

L. And Lucilla?

(LUCILLA hides her face in her hands.)

L. Dear, dear; but this will never do. I shall have to tell you of the faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in heart again.

MAY (coming out of her corner). Oh! have the crystals faults, like us?

L. Certainly, May. Their best virtues are shown in fighting their faults; and some have a great many faults; and some are very naughty crystals indeed.

FLORRIE (from behind her curtain). As naughty as me?

ISABEL (peeping out from under the table-cloth). Or me?

L. Well, I don't know. They never forget their syntax, children, when once they've been taught it. But I think some of them are, on the whole, worse than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to look so radiant, all in a minute, on that account.

DORA. Oh! but it's so much more comfortable.

(Everybody seems to recover their spirits. Eclipse of FLORRIE and ISABEL terminates.)

L. What kindly creatures girls are, after all, to their neighbors'

failings! I think you may be ashamed of yourselves indeed, now, children! I can tell you, you shall hear of the highest crystalline merits that I can think of, to-day: and I wish there were more of them; but crystals have a limited, though a stern, code of morals; and their essential virtues are but two;--the first is to be pure, and the second to be well shaped.

MARY. Pure! Does that mean clear--transparent?

L. No; unless in the case of a transparent substance. You cannot have a transparent crystal of gold; but you may have a perfectly pure one.

ISABEL. But you said it was the shape that made things be crystals; therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first virtue, not their second?

L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only their second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and things which the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or shaken, it must take what shape it can; but it seems as if, even then, it had in itself the power of rejecting impurity, if it has crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well enough shaped in its way; but it seems to have been languid and sick at heart; and some white milky substance has got into it, and mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite yellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on the surface. Here is another, broken into a thousand separate facets and out of all traceable shape; but as pure as a mountain spring.

I like this one best.

THE AUDIENCE. So do I--and I--and I.

MARY. Would a crystallographer?

L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified in the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile question, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a prior, if not a n.o.bler, virtue; at all events it is most convenient to think about it first.

MARY. But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be thought--I mean, much to puzzle one?

L. I don't know what you call "much." It is a long time since I met with anything in which there was little. There's not much in this, perhaps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean,--and there's an end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart-- only you can wash your hands without changing them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, it will be as well to take care that your hearts don't want much washing; for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they do.

(Audience doubtful and uncomfortable. LUCILLA at last takes courage.)

LUCILLA. Oh! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean?

L. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep them so, when they are.

LUCILLA. When they are! But, sir--

L. Well?

LUCILLA. Sir--surely--are we not told that they are all evil?