VIOLET. Why, it is leaf gold!
L. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at all, but woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold enough there to gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin.
VIOLET. How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with frost.
L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass for it is Transylvanian gold; and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little silver. I don't know how that may be, but the silver always IS in the gold, and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold is woven so fine anywhere else.
MARY (who has been looking through her magnifying glass). But this is not woven. This is all made of little triangles.
L. Say "patched," then, if you must be so particular. But if you fancy all those triangles, small as they are (and many of them are infinitely small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we built our great triangle of the beads, what word will you take for the manufacture?
MAY. There's no word—it is beyond words.
L. Yes, and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts too. But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to remember the second kind of crystals, LEAF-crystals, or FOLIATED crystals, though I show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression on you, for gold is not generally or characteristically, crystallized in leaves; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which if you once feel well and break well, you will always know again; and you will often have occasion to know it, for you will find it everywhere nearly, in hill countries.
KATHLEEN. If we break it well! May we break it?
L. To powder, if you like.