Part 17 (1/2)
DORA. Well, it may be all very fine and philosophical, but shouldn't I just like to read you the end of the second volume of ”Modern Painters”!
L. My dear, do you think any teacher could be worth your listening to, or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and altered his mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you love, else you might come to love both alike; or even the weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking Overbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things, in to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that I do not deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the other practices of saints and anchorites. The evidence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected, much less dispa.s.sionately examined: but a.s.suredly, there is in that direction a probability, and more than a probability, of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the practice of an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attaining a higher religious position, which induces us to encounter, for its exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I said, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest usefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest place in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the least likely to receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable, ”Friend, go up higher.”
LECTURE 8.
CRYSTAL CAPRICE
Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of minerals.
L. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might be seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by visible opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which the variety, however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel, ourselves, for many and slight causes,--much more, one should think, may crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human ways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no antagonistic force; but merely to the variable humor and caprice of the crystals themselves: and I have asked you all to come into the schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine audience. (Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said audience.) Now, you need not pretend that it will not interest you; why should it not? It is true that we men are never capricious; but that only makes us the more dull and disagreeable.
You, who are crystalline in brightness, as well as in caprice, charm infinitely, by infinitude of change. (Audible murmurs of ”Worse and worse!” ”As if we could be got over that way!” Etc. The LECTURER, however, observing the expression of the features to be more complacent, proceeds.) And the most curious mimicry, if not of your changes of fas.h.i.+on, at least of your various modes (in healthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the crystals of different countries. With a little experience, it is quite possible to say at a glance, in what districts certain crystals have been found; and although, if we had knowledge extended and accurate enough, we might of course ascertain the laws and circ.u.mstances which have necessarily produced the form peculiar to each locality, this would be just as true of the fancies of the human mind. If we could know the exact circ.u.mstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only caprice of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on the whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of Berne should wear their caps in the shape of b.u.t.terflies; and the peasant girls of Munich theirs in the shape of sh.e.l.ls, than to say why the rock-crystals of Dauphine should all have their summits of the shape of lip-pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard are symmetrical, or why the fluor of Chamouni is rose-colored, and in octahedrons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, and in cubes. Still farther removed is the hope, at present, of accounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single mineral, quart;--variations upon a single theme. It has many forms; but see what it will make out of this ONE, the six-sided prism. For shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its ”column,” and the pyramid at the extremities its ”cap.” Now, here, first you have a straight column as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here you have a short thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at the ends; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no column at all between them! Then here is a crystal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column built of columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half-way to their points. And in both these last, the little crystals are set anyhow, and build the large one in a disorderly way; but here is a crystal made of columns and truncated caps, set in regular terraces all the way up.
MARY. But are not these groups of crystals, rather than one crystal?
L. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal?
DORA (audibly aside, to MARY, who is brought to pause). You know you are never expected to answer, Mary.
L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you mean by a group of people?
MARY. Three or four together, or a good many together, like the caps in these crystals.
L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the shape of one person?
(MARY still at pause.)
ISABEL. No, because they can't; but you know the crystals can; so why shouldn't they?
L. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even often. Look here, Isabel.
ISABEL. What a nasty ugly thing!
L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful crystals; they are a little gray and cold in color, but most of them are clear.
ISABEL. But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!
L. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are naturally orderly. Some little girls' rooms are naturally orderly, I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they cry out so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.
ISABEL. Oh! but how come they to be like that?
L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking, as if they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It is wonderful--as we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruinous or wasteful, or deathful! I look at this wild piece of crystallization with endless astonishment.
MARY. Where does it come from?
L. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is that it should be in a vein of fine quartz. If it were in a mouldering rock, it would be natural enough; but in the midst of so fine substance, here are the crystals tossed in a heap; some large, myriads small (almost as small as dust), tumbling over each other like a terrified crowd, and glued together by the sides, and edges, and backs, and heads; some warped, and some pushed out and in, and all spoiled, and each spoiling the rest.
MARY. And how flat they all are!