alline 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.

MARY. But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be
thought--I mean, much to puzzle one?

L. I don't know what you call 'much.' It is a long time since I met with
anything in which there was little. There's not much in this, perhaps.
The crystal must be either dirty or clean,--and there's an end. So it is
with one's hands, and with one's heart--only you can wash your hands
without changing them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while
you are young, it will be as well to take care that your hearts don't
want much washing; for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they
do.

(_Audience doubtful and uncomfortable._ LUCILLA _at last
takes courage._)

LUCILLA. Oh! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean?

L. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep them so when they are.

LUCILLA. When they are! But, sir--

L. Well?

LUCILLA. Sir--surely--are we not told that they are all evil?

L. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground you are getting
upon; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we understand what
_their_ good and evil consist in; they may help us afterwards to some
useful hints about our own. I said that their goodness consisted chiefly
in purity of substance, and perfectness of form: but those are rather
the _effects_ of their goodness, than the goodness itself. The inherent
virtues of the crystals, resulting in these outer conditions, might
really seem to be best described in the words we should use respecting
living creatures--'force of heart' and steadiness of purpose.' There
seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an unconq