m. For shortness'
sake, I shall call the body of the prism its 'column,' and the pyramid
at the extremities its 'cap.' Now, here, first you have a straight
column, as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps
at the ends; and here you have a short thick column, as solid as a
haystack, with two fat caps at the ends; and here you have two caps
fastened together, and no column at all between them! Then here is a
crystal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap;
and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top
of a slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little
caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column built of
columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half way to their points.
And in both these last, the little crystals are set anyhow, and build
the large one in a disorderly way; but here is a crystal made of columns
and truncated caps, set in regular terraces all the way up.

MARY. But are not these, groups of crystals, rather than one crystal?

L. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal?

DORA (_audibly aside, to_ MARY, _who is brought to pause_). You know you
are never expected to answer, Mary.

L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you mean by a group of people?

MARY. Three or four together, or a good many together, like the caps in
these crystals.

L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the shape
of one person?

(MARY _still at pause._)

ISABEL. No, because they can't; but, you know the crystals can; so why
shouldn't they?

L. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even often.
Look here, Isabel.

ISABEL. What a nasty ugly thing!

L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful crystals;
they are a little grey and cold in colour, but most of them are clear.

ISABEL. But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!

L. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are
naturally orderly. Some little girl's rooms are naturally _dis_orderly,
I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they cry out
so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.

ISABEL. Oh! but how come they to be like that?

L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking as if
they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It _is_ wonderful--as
we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely wonderful