Isabel.  Yes; but I wasn’t carried:  I carried myself.

L. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what makes a thing alive, as what makes it a Self.  As soon as you are shut off from the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to be alive.

Violet (indignant).  Oh, surely—­surely that cannot be so.  Is not all the life of the soul in communion, not separation?

L. There can be no communion where there is no distinction.  But we shall be in an abyss of metaphysics presently, if we don’t look out; and besides, we must not be too grand, to-day, for the younger children.  We’ll be grand, some day, by ourselves, if we must. (The younger children are not pleased, and prepare to remonstrate; but, knowing by experience, that all conversations in which the word “communion” occurs, are unintelligible, think better of it.) Meantime, for broad answer about the atoms.  I do not think we should use the word “life,” of any energy which does not belong to a given form.  A seed, or an egg, or a young animal, are properly called “alive” with respect to the force belonging to those forms, which consistently develops that form, and no other.  But the force which crystallizes a mineral appears to be chiefly external, and it does not produce an entirely determinate and individual form, limited in size, but only an aggregation, in which some limiting laws must be observed.

Mary.  But I do not see much difference, that way, between a crystal and a tree.

L. Add, then, that the mode of the energy in a living thing implies a continual change in its elements; and a period for its end.  So you may define life by its attached negative, death; and still more by its attached positive, birth.  But I won’t be plagued any more about this, just now; if you choose to think the crystals alive, do, and welcome.  Rocks have always been called “living” in their native place.

Mary.  There’s one question more; then I’ve done.

L. Only one?

Mary.  Only one.

L. But if it is answered, won’t it turn into two?

Mary.  No; I think it will remain single, and be comfortable.

L. Let me hear it.

Mary.  You know, we are to crystallize ourselves out of the whole playground.  Now, what playground have the minerals!  Where are they scattered before they are crystallized; and where are the crystals generally made?

L. That sounds to me more like three questions than one, Mary.  If it is only one, it is a wide one.

Mary.  I did not say anything about the width of it.