Karel Čapek

“ Yes, when I was passing through the hordes and treasures of art, the collections of furniture, weapons, garments, carpets, carvings, porcelain, things chased, engraved, woven, kneaded, hammered, inlaid, and painted, enamelled and embroidered and woven, I again saw: nature is strange and mighty. All these are other sea-shells, produced by the urge of another divine and vehement playfulness ”

“ Yes, nature is strange and mighty: and I, an unwearied pilgrim to pictures and statues, must confess that I derived the greatest delight from the sea-shells and crystals in the Natural History Museum. ”

“ There are crystals as big as cathedral pillars, delicate as mildew and sharp as needles; plain, blue, green like nothing in the world, of fiery colours or black; mathematical, perfect, like the contrivances of queer and bewildered sages; or recalling livers, hearts, gigantic human organs and animal fluids. There are crystalline caves or spectral bubbles or mineral dough; there is mineral fermenting, grilling, growth, architecture and engineering; I vow that a Gothic church is not the most complicated of crystals. Even within us there persists a crystalline power ”