ISABEL. But you said it was the shape that made things be
crystals; therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first
virtue, not their second?
L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only
their second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and
things which the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly,
or shaken, it must take what shape it can; but it seems as if,
even then, it had in itself the power of rejecting impurity, if it
has crystalline life enough. Here is a crystal of quartz, well
enough shaped in its way; but it seems to have been languid and
sick at heart; and some white milky substance has got into it, and
mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the quartz quite
yellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on the
surface. Here is another, broken into a thousand separate facets
and out of all traceable shape; but as pure as a mountain spring.
I like this one best.
THE AUDIENCE. So do I--and I--and I.
MARY. Would a crystallographer?
L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified
in the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile
question, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a
prior, if not a nobler, virtue; at all events it is most
convenient to think about it first.
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