ISABEL. Oh! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always
gets everything in.
LILY. Ah! but, Isey, if you only knew what a time it takes! and
since you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't
do anything with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.
L. Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew what a time it
takes; and I wish any of us knew what a time crystallization
takes, for that is consummately fine packing. The particles of the
rock are thrown down, just as Isabel brings her things--in a heap;
and innumerable Lilies, not of the valley, but of the rock, come
to pack them. But it takes such a time!
However, the best--out and out the best--way of understanding the
thing, is to crystallize yourselves.
THE AUDIENCE. Ourselves!
L. Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly on the
schoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground.
You can play at crystallization there as much as you please.
KATHLEEN and JESSIE. Oh! how?--how?
L. First, you must put yourselves together, as close as you can,
in the middle of the grass, and form, for first practice, any
figure you like.
JESSIE. Any dancing figure, do you mean?
L. No; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you
like, standing close together. You had better outline it first on
the turf, with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly
drawn; then get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side,
till you are all quite in it, and no empty space left.
DORA. Crinoline and all?
L. The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline
surface, unless you pin it in; and then you may make a polished
crystal of yourselves.
LILY. Oh, we'll pin it in--we'll pin it in!
L. Then, when you are all in the figure, let every one note her
place, and who is next her on each side; and let the outsiders
count how many places they stand from the corners.
KATHLEEN. Yes, yes,--and then?
L. Then you must scatter all over the playground--right over it
from side to side, and end to end; and put yourselves all at equal
distances from each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it
very accurately, but so as to be nearly equidistant; not less than
about three yards apart from each other, on every side.
JESSIE. We can easily cut pieces of string of equal length, to
hold. And then? L. Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, at
the same rate, towards the outlined figure in the middle. You had
better sing as you walk; that will keep you in good time. And as
you close in towards it, let each take her place, and the next
comers fit themselves in beside the first ones, till you are all
in the figure again.
KATHLEEN. Oh! how we shall run against each other. What fun it
will be!
L. No, no, Miss Katie; I can't allow any running against each
other. The atoms never do that, whatever human creatures do. You
must all know your places, and find your way to them without
jostling.
LILY. But how ever shall we do that?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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