LECTURE 6.

CRYSTAL QUARRELS

Full conclave, in Schoolroom.  There has been a game of crystallization in the morning, of which various account has to be rendered.  In particular, everybody has to explain why they were always where they were not intended to be.

L. (having received and considered the report).  You have got on pretty well children:  but you know these were easy figures you have been trying.  Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals of snow!

Mary.  I don’t think those will be the most difficult:—­they are so beautiful that we shall remember our places better; and then they are all regular, and in stars:  it is those twisty oblique ones we are afraid of.

L. Read Carlyle’s account of the battle of Leuthen, and learn Friedrich’s “oblique order.”  You will “get it done for once, I think, provided you can march as a pair of compasses would.”  But remember, when you can construct the most difficult single figures, you have only learned half the game—­nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it.

Mary.  Indeed; what else is there?

L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallizes alone.  Usually two or three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together.  They do this absolutely without flaw or fault, when they are in fine temper:  and observe what this signifies.  It signifies that the two, or more, minerals of different natures agree, somehow, between themselves how much space each will want;—­agree which of them shall give way to the other at their junction; or in what measure each will accommodate itself to the other’s shape!  And then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space; yielding, or being yielded to, as it builds till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-natured neighbor.  So that, in order to practice this, in even the simplest terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing different colors; each must choose a different figure to construct; and you must form one of these figures through the other, both going on at the same time.

Mary.  I think we may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all understand how the crystals do.  It seems to imply so much preconcerting of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if they really were living.

L. Yes, it implies both the concurrence and compromise, regulating all wilfulness of design:  and, more curious still, the crystals do not always give way to each other.  They show exactly the same varieties of temper that human creatures might.  Sometimes they yield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming fantastic, but exquisitely finished groups:  and sometimes they will not yield at all; but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honor, and even their own likeness, in the contest.