's; but it is a shrewdly wide
one.

DORA (_pensive, for once_). I suppose it is very dreadful to be old! But
then (_brightening again_), what should we do without our dear old
friends, and our nice old lecturers?

L. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little as one I know of----

DORA. And if they all meant as little what they say, would they not
deserve it? But we'll come--we'll come, and cry.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Note v.

LECTURE IX.

_CRYSTAL SORROWS._

_Working Lecture in Schoolroom._

L. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if crystals might live,
and play, and quarrel, and behave ill or well, according to their
characters, without interruption from anything else. But so far from
this being so, nearly all crystals, whatever their characters, have to
live a hard life of it, and meet with many misfortunes. If we could see
far enough, we should find, indeed, that, at the root, all their vices
were misfortunes: but to-day I want you to see what sort of troubles the
best crystals have to go through, occasionally, by no fault of their
own.

This black thing, which is one of the prettiest of the very few pretty
black things in the world, is called 'Tourmaline.' It may be
transparent, and green, or red, as well as black; and then no stone can
be prettier (only, all the light that gets into it, I believe, comes out
a good deal the worse; and is not itself again for a long while). But
this is the commonest state of it,--opaque, and as black as jet.

MARY. What does 'Tourmaline' mean?

L. They say it is Ceylanese, and I don't know Ceylanese; but we may
always be thankful for a graceful word, whatever it means.

MARY. And what is it made of?

L. A little of everything; there's always flint, and clay, and magnesia
in it; and the black is iron, according to its fancy; and there's
boracic acid, if you know what that is; and if you don't, I cannot tell
you to-day; and it doesn't signify; and there's potash, and soda; and,
on the whole, the chemistry of it is more like a mediaeval doctor's
prescription, than the making of a respectable mineral: but it may,
perhaps, be owing to the strange complexity of its make, that it has a
notable habit which makes it, to me, one of the most interesting of
minerals. You see these two crystals are broken right across, in many
places, just as if they had been shafts of black marble fallen from a
ruinous temple; and here they lie, imbedded in white quartz, frag