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, but woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold
enough there to gild 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 not prettier, 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 always wanting to live in the moon, and so
alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that
may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it,
it's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven so fine anywhere
else.
MARY (who has been looking through her magnifying glass). But this
is not woven. This is all made of little triangles.
L. Say "patched," then, if you must be so particular. But if you
fancy all those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are
infinitely small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as
we built our great triangle of the beads, what word will you take
for the manufacture?
MAY. There's no word--it is beyond words.
L. Yes, and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts
too.
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