Part 42 (2/2)
MARY. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to the people of London?
L. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear; but they are spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the palace (as they call it) is a better place for them, by much, than the old fair; and it is always there, instead of for three days only; and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And good use may be made of the things in it, if you know how: but as for its teaching the people, it will teach them nothing but the lowest of the lower Pthah's work--nothing but hammer and tongs. I saw a wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the other day. Some unhappy metal-worker--I am not sure if it was not a metal-working firm--had taken three years to make a Golden eagle.
SIBYL. Of real gold?
L. No; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metal--it is no matter what. I meant a model of our chief British eagle. Every feather was made separately; and every filament of every feather separately, and so joined on; and all the quills modelled of the right length and right section, and at last the whole cl.u.s.ter of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't think much of my own drawing; but take my proud word for once, that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the Gray Harpy will sit, without s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his head round, for thirty seconds,--I can do a better thing of him in that time than the three years' work of this industrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my object,--not myself; and during the three years, the firm's object, in every fibre of bronze it made, was itself, and not the eagle. That is the true meaning of the little Pthah's having no eyes--he can see only himself. The Egyptian beetle was not quite the full type of him; our northern ground beetle is a truer one. It is beautiful to see it at work, gathering its treasures (such as they are) into little round b.a.l.l.s; and pus.h.i.+ng them home with the strong wrong end of it,--head downmost all the way,--like a modern political economist with his ball of capital, declaring that a nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues. But away with you, children, now, for I'm getting cross.
DORA. I'm going down-stairs; I shall take care, at any rate, that there are no little Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards.
LECTURE IV.
_THE CRYSTAL ORDERS._
_A working Lecture, in the large Schoolroom; with experimental Interludes The great bell has rung unexpectedly._
KATHLEEN (_entering disconsolate, though first at the summons_). Oh dear, oh dear, what a day! Was ever anything so provoking! just when we wanted to crystallise ourselves;--and I'm sure it's going to rain all day long.
L. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it But I don't see why Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want to crystallise yourselves: you didn't, the day before yesterday, and you were not unhappy when it rained then.
FLORRIE. Ah! but we do want to-day; and the rain's so tiresome.
L. That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer by the expectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make yourselves unhappier than when you had nothing to look forward to, but the old ones.
ISABEL. But then, to have to wait--wait--wait; and before we've tried it;--and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!
L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick perhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as uncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, when he would not lie quiet.
ISABEL. But what _are_ we to do to-day?
L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was nothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell you children, _that_ requires nearly as much practising as music; and we are continually losing our lessons when the master comes. Now, to-day, here's a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly.
ISABEL. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it properly.
L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to practise.
All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time. But there must be no hurry.
KATHLEEN. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day.
L. There's no music in a 'rest,' Katie, that I know of: but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life-melody; and scrambling on without counting--not that it's easy to count; but nothing on which so much depends ever _is_ easy. People are always talking of perseverance, and courage, and fort.i.tude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fort.i.tude,--and the rarest, too. I know twenty persevering girls for one patient one: but it is only that twenty-first who can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.
(ISABEL _and_ LILY _sit down on the floor, and fold their hands. The others follow their example._)
Good children! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded hands are not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really smiles at grief usually stands, or walks, or even runs: she seldom sits; though she may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor thing, by monuments; or like Chaucer's, 'with face pale, upon a hill of sand.' But we are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we use this calamitous forenoon to choose the shapes we are to crystallise into? we know nothing about them yet.
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