The Crown of Wild Olive

by John Ruskin

  LECTURE IV.

  _THE CRYSTAL ORDERS._

  _A working Lecture, in the large Schoolroom; with experimental Interludes The great bell has rung unexpectedly._

  KATHLEEN (_entering disconsolate, though first at the summons_). Ohdear, oh dear, what a day! Was ever anything so provoking! just when wewanted to crystallise ourselves;--and I'm sure it's going to rain allday long.

  L. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it But I don't seewhy Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want tocrystallise yourselves: you didn't, the day before yesterday, and youwere not unhappy when it rained then.

  FLORRIE. Ah! but we do want to-day; and the rain's so tiresome.

  L. That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer by theexpectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make yourselvesunhappier than when you had nothing to look forward to, but the oldones.

  ISABEL. But then, to have to wait--wait--wait; and before we've triedit;--and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!

  L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselvesuncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stickperhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are asuncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, whenhe would not lie quiet.

  ISABEL. But what _are_ we to do to-day?

  L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there wasnothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell youchildren, _that_ requires nearly as much practising as music; and we arecontinually losing our lessons when the master comes. Now, to-day,here's a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly.

  ISABEL. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it properly.

  L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to practise.All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly, and intime. But there must be no hurry.

  KATHLEEN. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day.

  L. There's no music in a 'rest,' Katie, that I know of: but there's themaking of music in it. And people are always missing that part of thelife-melody; and scrambling on without counting--not that it's easy tocount; but nothing on which so much depends ever _is_ easy. People arealways talking of perseverance, and courage, and fortitude; but patienceis the finest and worthiest part of fortitude,--and the rarest, too. Iknow twenty persevering girls for one patient one: but it is only thattwenty-first who can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patiencelies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hopeherself ceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.

  (ISABEL _and_ LILY _sit down on the floor, and fold their hands. The others follow their example._)

  Good children! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded handsare not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really smiles atgrief usually stands, or walks, or even runs: she seldom sits; thoughshe may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor thing, bymonuments; or like Chaucer's, 'with face pale, upon a hill of sand.' Butwe are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we use this calamitousforenoon to choose the shapes we are to crystallise into? we knownothing about them yet.

  (_The pictures of resignation rise from the floor, not in the patientest manner. General applause._)

  MARY _(with one or two others_). The very thing we wanted to ask youabout!

  LILY. We looked at the books about crystals, but they are so dreadful.

  L. Well, Lily, we must go through a little dreadfulness, that's a fact:no road to any good knowledge is wholly among the lilies and the grass;there is rough climbing to be done always. But the crystal-books are alittle _too_ dreadful, most of them, I admit; and we shall have to becontent with very little of their help. You know, as you cannot stand oneach other's heads, you can only make yourselves into the sections ofcrystals,--the figures they show when they are cut through; and we willchoose some that will be quite easy. You shall make diamonds ofyourselves----

  ISABEL. Oh, no, no! we won't be diamonds, please.

  L. Yes, you shall, Isabel; they are very pretty things, if thejewellers, and the kings and queens, would only let them alone. Youshall make diamonds of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, andemeralds; and Irish diamonds; two of those--with Lily in the middle ofone, which will be very orderly, of course; and Kathleen in the middleof the other, for which we will hope the best;--and you shall makeDerbyshire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar, and gold, and silver,and--Quicksilver there's enough of in you, without any making.

  MARY. Now, you know, the children will be getting quite wild: we mustreally get pencils and paper, and begin properly.

  L. Wait a minute, Miss Mary; I think as we've the school room clearto-day, I'll try to give you some notion of the three great orders orranks of crystals, into which all the others seem more or less to fall.We shall only want one figure a day, in the playground; and that can bedrawn in a minute: but the general ideas had better be fastened first. Imust show you a great many minerals; so let me have three tables wheeledinto the three windows, that we may keep our specimens separate;--wewill keep the three orders of crystals on separate tables.

  (_First Interlude, of pushing and pulling, and spreading of baize covers._ VIOLET, _not particularly minding what she is about, gets herself jammed into a corner, and bid to stand out of the way; on which she devotes herself to meditation._)

  VIOLET (_after interval of meditation_). How strange it is thateverything seems to divide into threes!

  L. Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy won't, though shamrockwill; and daisies won't, though lilies will.

  VIOLET. But all the nicest things seem to divide into threes.

  L. Violets won't.

  VIOLET. No; I should think not, indeed! But I mean the great things.

  L. I've always heard the globe had four quarters.

  ISABEL. Well; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all. Somayn't it really be divided into three?

  L. If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of it,Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in; and if it were divided intothree in the inside of it, it would soon be no world to live in at all.

  DORA. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (_Aside to_MARY.) He will get off into political economy before we know where weare. (_Aloud._) But the crystals are divided into three, then?

  L. No; but there are three general notions by which we may best get holdof them. Then between these notions there are other notions.

  LILY (_alarmed_). A great many? And shall we have to learn them all?

  L. More than a great many--a quite infinite many. So you cannot learnthem all.

  LILY (_greatly relieved_). Then may we only learn the three?

  L. Certainly; unless, when you have got those three notions, you want tohave some more notions;--which would not surprise me. But we'll try forthe three, first. Katie, you broke your coral necklace this morning?

  KATHLEEN. Oh! who told you? It was in jumping. I'm so sorry!

  L. I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it?

  KATHLEEN. I've lost some; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can onlyget them out.

  L. You mean to get them out some day, I suppose; so try now. I wantthem.

  (KATHLEEN _empties her pocket on the floor. The beads disperse. The School disperses also. Second Interlude--hunting piece._)

  L. (_after waiting patiently for a quarter of an hour, to_ ISABEL, _whocomes up from under the table with her hair all about her ears, and thelast findable beads in her hand_). Mice are useful little thingssometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those beads crystallised. How manyways are there of putting them in order?

  ISABEL. Well, first one would string them, I suppose?

  L. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string ultimate atoms;but you can put them in a row, and then they fasten themselvestogether, somehow, into a long rod or needle. We will call t
hese'_Needle_-crystals.' What would be the next way?

  ISABEL. I suppose, as we are to get together in the playground, when itstops raining, in different shapes?

  L. Yes; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you can, tobegin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close.

  ISABEL (_after careful endeavour_). I can't get them closer.

  L. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to throwyourselves into square in this confused way, you will never know yourplaces; so you had better consider every square as made of rods, putside by side. Take four beads of equal size, first, Isabel; put theminto a little square. That, you may consider as made up of two rods oftwo beads each. Then you can make a square a size larger, out of threerods of three. Then the next square may be a size larger. How many rods,Lily?

  LILY. Four rods of four beads each, I suppose.

  L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. But now, look here; makeanother square of four beads again. You see they leave a little openingin the centre.

  ISABEL (_pushing two opposite ones closer together_). Now they don't.

  L. No; but now it isn't a square; and by pushing the two together youhave pushed the two others farther apart.

  ISABEL. And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were!

  L. Yes; for before, each of them only touched two of the others, but noweach of the two in the middle touches the other three. Take away one ofthe outsiders, Isabel; now you have three in a triangle--the smallesttriangle you can make out of the beads. Now put a rod of three beads onat one side. So, you have a triangle of six beads; but just the shape ofthe first one. Next a rod of four on the side of that; and you have atriangle of ten beads: then a rod of five on the side of that; and youhave a triangle of fifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads onthe side, and a triangle with five beads on the side; equal-sided,therefore, like the square. So, however few or many you may be, you maysoon learn how to crystallise quickly into these two figures, which arethe foundation of form in the commonest, and therefore actually the mostimportant, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our esteem, themost important, minerals of the world. Look at this in my hand.

  VIOLET. Why, it is leaf-gold!

  L. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at all, butwoven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold enough there togild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin.

  VIOLET. How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with frost.

  L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is notprettier, in reality, than a bit of brass: for it is Transylvanian gold;and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is alwayswanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a littlesilver. I don't know how that may be: but the silver always _is_ in thegold; and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold iswoven so fine anywhere else.

  MARY (_who has been looking through her magnifying glass_). But this isnot woven. This is all made of little triangles.

  L. Say 'patched,' then, if you must be so particular. But if you fancyall those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are infinitelysmall), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we built ourgreat triangle of the beads, what word will you take for themanufacture?

  MAY. There's no word--it is beyond words.

  L. Yes; and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts too.But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from theruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to remember thesecond kind of crystals, _Leaf_-crystals, or _Foliated_ crystals; thoughI show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression onyou, for gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised inleaves; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which ifyou once feel well, and break well, you will always know again; and youwill often have occasion to know it, for you will find it everywhere,nearly, in hill countries.

  KATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?

  L. To powder, if you like.

  (_Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation. Third Interlude. It sustains severely philosophical treatment at all hands._)

  FLORRIE. (_to whom the last fragments have descended_) Always leaves,and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust!

  L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.

  (_Shows them to_ FLORRIE _through magnifying glass._)

  ISABEL. (_peeping over_ FLORRIE'S _shoulder_). But then this bit underthe glass looks like that bit out of the glass! If we could break thisbit under the glass, what would it be like?

  L. It would be all leaves still.

  ISABEL. And then if we broke those again?

  L. All less leaves still.

  ISABEL (_impatient_). And if we broke them again, and again, and again,and again, and again?

  L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it.Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the largeones: because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent; while thelarge flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when youlet it go, and broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a large masswould not bend at all.

  MARY. Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way?

  L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimenof a foliated crystallisation. The little triangles are portions ofsolid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica;but you see it is made up of triangles like the gold, and stands, almostaccurately, as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold.Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals.

  MARY. Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.

  L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised: from its resemblance tomica, it is often called micaceous iron.

  KATHLEEN. May we break this, too?

  L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, itwould not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the glassagain, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangleswhere they lap over each other. The gold has the same: but you see thembetter here, terrace above terrace, countless, and in successive angles,like superb fortified bastions.

  MAY. But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?

  L. Far from it: mica is occasionally so, but usually of hexagons; andhere is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that theleaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as theirautumnal gold.

  FLORRIE. Oh! oh! oh! (_jumps for joy_).

  L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?

  FLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.

  L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after ashower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely theyare none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?

  FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, Isuppose.

  L. Now you have it, Florrie.

  VIOLET (_sighing_). There are so many beautiful things we never see!

  L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what weshould all sigh for,--that there are so many ugly things we never see.

  VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!

  L. You had better say, 'We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to beglad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes canever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, thanhis own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.

  VIOLET. I don't understand;--how is that like the leaves?

  L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in ourneglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half aninch of a green leaf in a brown stone; and takes more notice of it thanof all the green in the wood: and you, or I, or any of us, would beunhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; butwe
can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and ofwomen and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew thebrooks in Vallombrosa;--and then go out to play croquet, as if nothinghad happened.

  MAY. But we do not see the people being killed or dying.

  L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the otherday, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him and played nocroquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, youmust let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questionstill I've done: for we branch ('exfoliate,' I should say,mineralogically) always into something else,--though that's my faultmore than yours; but I must go straight on now. You have got a distinctnotion, I hope, of leaf-crystals; and you see the sort of look theyhave: you can easily remember that 'folium' is Latin for a leaf, andthat the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called'folia;' but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones,other things that are like it in structure are called 'micas;' thus wehave Uran-mica, which is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-mica,which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this foliated ironis called 'micaceous iron.' You have then these two great orders,Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows; and Leaf-crystals,made (probably) of needles interwoven; now, lastly, there are crystalsof a third order, in heaps, or knots, or masses, which may be made,either of leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound like Romanfasces; and mica itself, when it is well crystallised, puts itself intosuch masses, as if to show us how others are made. Here is a brownsix-sided crystal, quite as beautifully chiselled at the sides as anycastle tower; but you see it is entirely built of folia of mica, onelaid above another, which break away the moment I touch the edge with myknife. Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the same size andcolour, which I want you to compare with the mica carefully; but as Icannot wait for you to do it just now, I must tell you quickly what maindifferences to look for. First, you will feel it is far heavier than themica. Then, though its surface looks quite micaceous in the folia of it,when you try them with the knife, you will find you cannot break themaway----

  KATHLEEN. May I try?

  L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you.(_Experimental pause._ KATHLEEN, _doing her best._) You'll have thatknife shutting on your finger presently, Kate; and I don't know a girlwho would like less to have her hand tied up for a week.

  KATHLEEN (_who also does not like to be beaten--giving up the knifedespondently_). What _can_ the nasty hard thing be?

  L. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate: very hard set certainly, yetnot so hard as it might be. If it were thoroughly well crystallised, youwould see none of those micaceous fractures; and the stone would bequite red and clear, all through.

  KATHLEEN. Oh, cannot you show us one?

  L. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful one in the clasp ofher favourite bracelet.

  KATHLEEN. Why, that's a ruby!

  L. Well, so is that thing you've been scratching at.

  KATHLEEN. My goodness!

  (_Takes up the stone again, very delicately; and drops it. General consternation._)

  L. Never mind, Katie; you might drop it from the top of the house, anddo it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and asgood-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults,like other people; and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to assertanything energetically, I would assert it by 'my badness,' not 'mygoodness.'

  KATHLEEN. Ah, now, it's too bad of you!

  L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my 'too-badness.' But you mayas well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look carefully atthe beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface; and here is apretty white sapphire (essentially the same stone as the ruby), in whichyou will see the same lovely structure, like the threads of the finestwhite cobweb. I do not know what is the exact method of a ruby'sconstruction; but you see by these lines, what fine construction there_is_, even in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usuallyappears as a massive lump or knot. There is therefore no realmineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals,but, practically, crystallised masses throw themselves into one of thethree groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either asNeedles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or fibres),they make the stones or rocks formed out of them '_fibrous_;' when theyare in folia, they make them '_foliated_;' when they are in knots (orgrains), '_granular_.' Fibrous rocks are comparatively rare, in mass;but fibrous minerals are innumerable; and it is often a question whichreally no one but a young lady could possibly settle, whether one shouldcall the fibres composing them 'threads' or 'needles.' Here isamianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cottonthread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, withsharper points and brighter lustre than your finest needles have; andfastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace;and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, butit is all of purple needle crystals; and here is red oxide of copper(you must not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some of thefilms of it off the stone), which is simply a woven tissue of scarletsilk. However, these finer thread forms are comparatively rare, whilethe bolder and needle-like crystals occur constantly; so that, Ibelieve, 'Needle-crystal' is the best word (the grand one is 'Acicularcrystal,' but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easilyunderstood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf-crystals, as Isaid, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and the Granular crystals,which are of many kinds, form essentially granular, or granitic andporphyritic rocks; and it is always a point of more interest to me (andI think will ultimately be to you), to consider the causes which force agiven mineral to take any one of these three general forms, than whatthe peculiar geometrical limitations are, belonging to its owncrystals.[150] It is more interesting to me, for instance, to try andfind out why the red oxide of copper, usually crystallising in cubes oroctahedrons, makes itself exquisitely, out of its cubes, into this redsilk in one particular Cornish mine, than what are the absolutelynecessary angles of the octahedron, which is its common form. At allevents, that mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls'strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners ofcrystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the mostcurious teaching for you. For in the fulfilment, to the best of theirpower, of their adopted form under given circumstances, there areconditions entirely resembling those of human virtue; and indeedexpressible under no term so proper as that of the Virtue, or Courage ofcrystals:--which, if you are not afraid of the crystals making youashamed of yourselves, we will try to get some notion of, to-morrow. Butit will be a bye-lecture, and more about yourselves than the minerals,Don't come unless you like.

  MARY. I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but we'llcome, for all that.

  L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or threadcrystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying glasses,and see what thoughts will come into your little heads about them. Forthe best thoughts are generally those which come without being forced,one does not know how. And so I hope you will get through your wet daypatiently.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [150] Note iv.