Dust" (1865), lectures to little housewives on mineralogy and
crystallography, nature's work in crystallization being the text for a
diatribe against sordid living. "Sesame and Lilies," which belongs also
to this period of the writer's work, consists of three addresses,
delivered at Manchester and at Dublin, designed specially for young
girls, and treating in the main of good and improving literature. The
first of them, "Of Kings' Treasuries," deals with the treasures hidden
in books, the writings of the world's great men; its sequel, "Of Queens'
Gardens," deals with the function and sphere of woman, and, by way of
application, with the how and the what to read; the third lecture, on
"The Mystery of Life and its Arts," is a discursive but inspiring
consideration of what life is and how most successfully to battle with
it in the way of our work and of our appointed duty. All three lectures,
observes a commentator, "tell men and women of the ideals they should
set before them; how to read and to build character under the
inspiration of the nobility of the past, fitting one's self for such
great society; how to develop noble womanhood; how to bear one's self
toward the wonder of life, toward one's work in the world, and toward
one's duty to others."

Other lectures and _brochures_ of or about this period are "Hortus
Inclusus" (The Enclosed Garden), being "Messages from the Wood to the
Garden sent in happy days to two sister ladies," residing at Coniston,
and collected in 1887; "Arrows of the Chace," letters on various
subjects to newspapers, gathered and edited in 1880; "The Two Paths,"
lectures on art and its application to Decoration and Manufacture
(1859); "Ariadne Florentina" (1873), a monograph on Italian wood and
metal engraving; "Aratra Pentelici" (1872), on the elements and
principles of sculpture; and "The Eagle's Nest" (1872), on the relation
of natural science to art. Still pursuing his delightful methods of
interpreting nature and teaching the world instructive lessons, even
from the common things of mother earth, we have a series of three
eloquent discourses, entitled (1) "Proserpina," studies of Alpine and
other wayside flowers, dwelling on the mystery of growth in plants and
the tender beauty of their form; (2) "Deucalion," a sort of glorified
geological text-book, treating of stones and their life-history, and
showing the wearing effect upon them of waves and the action of water;
and (3) "Love's Meinie" (18