The Crown of Wild Olive
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 fibres 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
crystallised with them, and round them. And the brecciated agate I first
showed you contains exactly the same phenomena; a zoned crystallisation
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 crystallised 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 the 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 crystallisation 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 labourers; 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 fulfilment, 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.
L. Nor you, Sibyl?
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 fibres, 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_