might carry the rapt spirit on the swelling waves of ecstacy to
where "the flood-mark of humanity touches the white pillars of
the heavenly throne ;" music to which archangels accustomed to the
antiphonal harmonies of heavenly choirs might listen between the
cadences of those angelic anthems.
Dynamical geology is a record of Titanic conflict through aeons
of world history. If matter is in any even low degree sentient,
what age-long agonies, what colossal sums of torture earth has en
dured since the far dawn of the nebular clay. Ruskin has used the
idea of some form of sentience in the elements repeatedly and with
beauty and force in Ethics of the Dust. In Lect. IX., speaking of
crystalline power, "It is essentially a styptic power, and wherever
the earth is torn it heals and binds : nay, the torture and grieving
of the earth seem necessary to bring out its full energy; for you
only find the crystalline living power fully in action where the
rents and faults are deep and many." Again, speaking of themar
bles, "which have been the delight of the eye and the wealth of
architecture among all civilized nations, are precisely those on
which the signs and brands of these earth agonies have been chiefly
struck ; and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them,
which is not the record of their ancient torture." In Lect. X., Dora
interrupts with "Yoti always talk as if the crystals were alive ; and
we never understand how much you are in play and how much
in earnest." He replies : "Neither do I understand myself how
much lam in earnest. The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle
you. They look as if they were alive, and make me speak as if
they were ;' and I do not in the least know how much truth there
is in the appearance." A little later Mary interrupts, "It is very
delightful to imagine the mountains to be alive ; but then are they ?
His reply, though ambiguous, seems to be affirmative, and Dora
and Jessie (clapping their hands) : "Then we may really believe
that the mountains are living?" Ruskin replies : "You may at least
earnestly believe that the presence of the spirit which culminates
in your own life shows itself in dawning, wherever the dust of the
earth begins to assume any orderly and lovely state."
After all, we know so little of the modes of existence of matter