Naomi Black, Virginia Woolf as Feminist,  Ithaca, Cornell University, 2004, p. 34.

Then, is the attempt to understand the final product fully, the reader would like to know the source of material that was transformed into something of lasting value. Two images : a piece of grit generates an oyster’s pearl, a caddis-fly grub arranges fragments of crystal that make its case a delight to the eye. What the grit was, and what the crystals, and how they became beautiful- these pieces of information can tell us more about the final jewels than any question about why that piece of grit got inside the shell, and what personal/generic compulsions led the bivalve and the bug to labor.