L. (after giving them a little time).  Mary, I seldom ask you to read anything out of books of mine; but there is a passage about the Law of Help, which I want you to read to the children now, because it is of no use merely to put it in other words for them.  You know the place I mean, do not you?

Mary.  Yes (presently finding it); where shall I begin?

L. Here, but the elder ones had better look afterwards at the piece which comes just before this.

Mary (reads)

“A pure or holy state of anything is that in which all its parts are helpful or consistent.  The highest and first law of the universe, and the other name of life, is therefore, ‘help’.  The other name of death is ‘separation’.  Government and cooperation are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life.  Anarchy and competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death.

“Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take of the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the dust we tread on.

“Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town.  I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse, but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town.  That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand and water.  All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other’s nature and power competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot, sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole.  Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations possible.

“Let the clay begin.  Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings’ palaces.  But such artificial consistence is not its best.  Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only white but clear; not only clear, but hard; nor only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest.  We call it then a sapphire.

“Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand.  It also becomes, first, a white earth; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever.  We call it then an opal.