L. No, never:  they attend to their own work and life; and live it as well as they can, though they are always the sufferers.  Here, for instance, is a rock crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighborhood, near Beaufort in Savoy; and he has had to fight with vile calcareous mud all his life.  See here, when he was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly buried him; a weaker crystal would have died in despair; but he only gathered himself together, like Hercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of crystal over the clay; conquered it,—­imprisoned it,—­and lived on.  Then, when he was a little older, came more clay; and poured itself upon him here, at the side; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived on, in his purity.  Then the clay came on at his angles, and tried to cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central line as chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round the clay; and conquered it again.  At last the clay came on at his summit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure that for an instant; and left his flanks all rough, but pure; and fought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest and peak over peak, till the clay surrendered at last, and here is his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high!

Lily.  Oh, how nice of him!  What a dear, brave crystal!  But I can’t bear to see his flanks all broken, and the clay within them.

L. Yes; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such contention; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them captive is a kind of dishonor.  But look, here has been quite a different kind of struggle:  the adverse power has been more orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its own.  This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil:  here is a disciplined hostility; army against army.

Lily.  Oh, but this is much more beautiful!

L. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue in them, it is a pity they are at war, but they war grandly.

Mary.  But is this the same clay as in the other crystal?

L. I used the word clay for shortness.  In both, the enemy is really limestone; but in the first, disordered, and mixed with true clay; while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallizes into its own primitive form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know:  and out of these it makes regiments; and then squares of the regiments, and so charges the rock crystal, literally in square against column.

Isabel.  Please, please, let me see.  And what does the rock crystal do?

L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing.  The calcite cuts it through at every charge.  Look here,—­and here!  The loveliest crystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.