The Crown of Wild Olive
into the three windows, that we may keep our specimens separate;--we
will keep the three orders of crystals on separate tables.
(_First Interlude, of pushing and pulling, and spreading of
baize covers._ VIOLET, _not particularly minding what she is
about, gets herself jammed into a corner, and bid to stand
out of the way; on which she devotes herself to
meditation._)
VIOLET (_after interval of meditation_). How strange it is that
everything seems to divide into threes!
L. Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy won't, though shamrock
will; and daisies won't, though lilies will.
VIOLET. But all the nicest things seem to divide into threes.
L. Violets won't.
VIOLET. No; I should think not, indeed! But I mean the great things.
L. I've always heard the globe had four quarters.
ISABEL. Well; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all. So
mayn't it really be divided into three?
L. If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of it,
Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in; and if it were divided into
three in the inside of it, it would soon be no world to live in at all.
DORA. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (_Aside to_
MARY.) He will get off into political economy before we know where we
are. (_Aloud._) But the crystals are divided into three, then?
L. No; but there are three general notions by which we may best get hold
of them. Then between these notions there are other notions.
LILY (_alarmed_). A great many? And shall we have to learn them all?
L. More than a great many--a quite infinite many. So you cannot learn
them all.
LILY (_greatly relieved_). Then may we only learn the three?
L. Certainly; unless, when you have got those three notions, you want to
have some more notions;--which would not surprise me. But we'll try for
the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral necklace this morning?
KATHLEEN. Oh! who told you? It was in jumping. I'm so sorry!
L. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it?
KATHLEEN. I've lost some; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can only
get them out.
L. You mean to get them out some day, I suppose; so try now. I want
them.
(KATHLEEN _empties her pocket on the floor. The beads
disperse. The School disperses also. Second
Interlude--hunting piece._)
L. (_after waiting patiently for a quarter of an hour, to_ ISABEL, _who
comes up from under the table with her hair all about her ears, and the
last findable beads in her hand_). Mice are useful little things
sometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those beads crystallised. How many
ways are there of putting them in order?
ISABEL. Well, first one would string them, I suppose?
L. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string ultimate atoms;
but you can put them in a row, and then they fasten themselves
together, somehow, into a long rod or needle. We will call these
'_Needle_-crystals.' What would be the next way?
ISABEL. I suppose, as we are to get together in the playground, when it
stops raining, in different shapes?
L. Yes; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you can, to
begin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close.
ISABEL (_after careful endeavour_). I can't get them closer.
L. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to throw
yourselves into square in this confused way, you will never know your
places; so you had better consider every square as made of rods, put
side by side. Take four beads of equal size, first, Isabel; put them
into a little square. That, you may consider as made up of two rods of
two beads each. Then you can make a square a size larger, out of three
rods of three. Then the next square may be a size larger. How many rods,
Lily?
LILY. Four rods of four beads each, I suppose.
L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. But now, look here; make
another square of four beads again. You see they leave a little opening
in the centre.
ISABEL (_pushing two opposite ones closer together_). Now they don't.
L. No; but now it isn't a square; and by pushing the two together you
have pushed the two others farther apart.
ISABEL. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were!
L. Yes; for before, each of them only touched two of the others, but now
each of the two in the middle touches the other three. Take away one of
the outsiders, Isabel; now you have three in a triangle--the smallest
triangle you can make out of the beads. Now put a rod of three beads on
at one side. So, you have a triangle of six beads; but just the shape of
the first one. Next a rod of four on the side of that; and you have a
triangle of ten beads: then a rod of five on the side of that; and you
have a triangle of fifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads on
the side, and a triangle with five beads on the side; equal-sided,
therefore, like the square. So, however few or many you may be, you may
soon learn how to crystallise quickly into these two figures, which are
the foundation of form in the commonest, and therefore actually the most
important, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our esteem, the
most important, minerals of the world. Look at this in my hand.
VIOLET. Why, it is leaf-gold!
L. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at all, but
woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold enough there to
gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin.
VIOLET. How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with frost.
L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not
prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass: for it is Transylvanian gold;
and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always
wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little
silver. I don't know how that may be: but the silver always _is_ in the
gold; and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold is
woven so fine anywhere else.
MARY (_who has been looking through her magnifying glass_). But this is
not woven. This is all made of little triangles.
L. Say 'patched,' then, if you must be so particular. But if you fancy
all those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are infinitely
small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we built our
great triangle of the beads, what word will you take for the
manufacture?
MAY. There's no word--it is beyond words.
L. Yes; and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts too.
But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the
ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to remember the
second kind of crystals, _Leaf_-crystals, or _Foliated_ crystals; though
I show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression on
you, for gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised in
leaves; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which if
you once feel well, and break well, you will always know again; and you
will often have occasion to know it, for you will find it everywhere,
nearly, in hill countries.
KATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?
L. To powder, if you like.
(_Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation.
Third Interlude. It sustains severely philosophical
treatment at all hands._)
FLORRIE. (_to whom the last fragments have descended_) Always leaves,
and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust!
L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.
(_Shows them to_ FLORRIE _through magnifying glass._)
ISABEL. (_peeping over_ FLORRIE'S _shoulder_). But then this bit under
the glass looks like that bit out of the glass! If we could break this
bit under the glass, what would it be like?
L. It would be all leaves still.
ISABEL. And then if we broke those again?
L. All less leaves still.
ISABEL (_impatient_). And if we broke them again, and again, and again,
and again, and again?
L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it.
Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the large
ones: because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent; while the
large flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when you
let it go, and broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a large mass
would not bend at all.
MARY. Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way?
L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimen
of a foliated crystallisation. The little triangles are portions of
solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica;
but you see it is made up of triangles like the gold, and stands, almost
accurately, as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold.
Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals.
MARY. Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.
L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised: from its resemblance to
mica, it is often called micaceous iron.
KATHLEEN. May we break this, too?
L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, it
would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the glass
again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles
where they lap over each other. The gold has the same: but you see them
better here, terrace above terrace, countless, and in successive angles,
like superb fortified bastions.
MAY. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?
L. Far from it: mica is occasionally so, but usually of hexagons; and
here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that the
leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as their
autumnal gold.
FLORRIE. Oh! oh! oh! (_jumps for joy_).
L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?
FLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.
L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a
shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they
are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?
FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I
suppose.
L. Now you have it, Florrie.
VIOLET (_sighing_). There are so many beautiful things we never see!
L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we
should all sigh for,--that there are so many ugly things we never see.
VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!
L. You had better say, 'We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to be
glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can
ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than
his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.
VIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?
L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our
neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an
inch of a green leaf in a brown stone; and takes more notice of it than
of all the green in the wood: and you, or I, or any of us, would be
unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but
we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of
women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the
brooks in Vallombrosa;--and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing
had happened.
MAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.
L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other
day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him and played no
croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, you
must let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questions
till I've done: for we branch ('exfoliate,' I should say,