ads on the side; equal-sided,
therefore, like the square. So, however few or many you may be, you may
soon learn how to crystallise quickly into these two figures, which are
the foundation of form in the commonest, and therefore actually the most
important, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our esteem, the
most 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, 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.
But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the
ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to remember the
second kind of crystals, _Leaf_-crystals, or _Foliated_ crystals; though
I show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression on
you, for gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised in
leaves; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which if
you once feel well, and break well, you will always know again; and you
will 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 philosoph