time.

MARY. I think _we_ may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all
understand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much preconcerting
of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if they really were
living.

L. Yes, it implies both concurrence and compromise, regulating all
wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do _not_
always give way to each other. They show exactly the same varieties of
temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they yield the required
place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming fantastic, but
exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they will not yield at all;
but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honour, and
even their own likeness, in the contest.

MARY. But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never sees it
spoken of in books?

L. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant laws
under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite humours of the
elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific people rarely give
themselves the trouble of thinking at all when they look at stones. Not
that it is of much use to think; the more one thinks, the more one is
puzzled.

MARY. Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany?

L. Everything has its own wonders; but, given the nature of the plant,
it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and why it does it,
than, given anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to understand what
a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at once admit a kind of
volition and choice, in the flower, but we are not accustomed to
attribute anything of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in reality,
more likeness to some conditions of human feeling among stones than
among plants. There is a far greater difference between kindly-tempered
and ill-tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two
specimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of crystals
depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties of disposition,
than any associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good garnet,
living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white: the
mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallise
comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house;
fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are wicked garnets
living with wicked mica. See what ruin they make of each other! You
cannot tell w