Chapter V (3)

I am now full of years and philosophy; my wife, like myself, is a contemplative full-bodied toad, in whose eyes I am perfectly beautiful. I must own my appearance has greatly improved. The like compliment cannot be honestly paid to my mother-in-law, who has caused me no small trouble. She increases in age and infirmities. The reader will pardon my repeating, that notwithstanding my rotundity, I am no longer ugly. Should he have any doubt on this point, let him ask my wife!

{88}

THE THEATRICAL CRITIC.

MY DEAR MASTER,

You must feel alarmed during this hot weather at seeing the walls inscribed with “Death to poodle-dogs,” having yesterday, with your own hand, sent me adrift without either muzzle or collar. You knew that I wanted my liberty; I was indeed constrained to beg of you to let me go by what you would term “some subtle indescribable impulse.” To tell the truth, the conversation you carried on with your friends about Boileau, Aristotle, Smith’s last book, and the “five unities,” proved dull. I listened to you as long as I could, then yawned, and barked as if I heard some one at the door. Nothing would for one instant draw your attention from scientific discussion.

You even pushed me off your knee just as you had clinched an argument by pointing out that the ancients were always the ancients.

It was truly unkind of you to persist in remaining indoors when duty and inclination called me abroad. At last you let me go. I had found on the table an order for a stage-box in the Theatre of the Animals, a glorious place where they were only waiting for you and me. For two reasons I will refrain from writing down a full review of the play: first, because I am only a novice in the art; and secondly, because you, my master, gain your bread by descriptive writing. How could you. {89} cram your paper daily if you had not at hand all the stock phrases of dramatic criticism? As for myself, I feel rich in the mine of poesy that prompts every wag of my shaggy tail.

I should be an ungrateful dog if I robbed you of your capital. Your imagination I have nothing to find fault with, seeing that your greatest successes, as a dramatic critic, were penned on plays you never took the trouble to witness.

I made my way to the theatre on foot, for the weather was fine. I came across some agreeable acquaintances on the way, all going with their noses to the wind. The bulldog at the door respectfully inclined his head as I entered the box and threw myself carelessly into a chair, my right foot on the velvet cushion in front, and my legs resting on a couch. This graceful attitude you yourself assume when preparing to sit out, or sleep out, a five-act play.

I had hardly been seated two minutes when the orchestra was invaded by musicians. These personages were the gayest to behold. The flute was played by a goose, while a donkey struck the harp—_asinus ad lyram_, wrote some erudite poet. A turkey clacked in E flat. The symphony began, and resembled those of which you speak so enthusiastically every winter. The curtain then rose, and my troubles as a critic commenced.

It was a very solemn drama, written by a sort of greyhound, or {90} half-greyhound and half-bulldog, a half-English half-German animal, who had entered the Dogs’ Institute of Paris.

This great dramatic poet, whose name is Fanor, has a way of manufacturing dramas as ingenious as it is simple. He first goes to Mr. Puff’s Pug and demands a subject, next he makes his way to Mr. Scribe’s Poodle and engages him to write it. When the play is put on the stage, he employs six pariahs to applaud it, brutes they are who bark savagely. He is a wonderful fellow. Fanor wears his coat well brushed and most artistically curled, altogether he is just the sort of cur to wait upon rank and bow it into the boxes.

The play was said to be new. Let us skip the first scene. It is always the same—servants and confidants explaining the nature of the crimes, griefs, intrigues, virtues, or ambitions of their masters.

Do you know, my master, it was perhaps a great mistake to remove the muzzles of our poets. The traffic in the sublime has been left to an unmuzzled race of poodle-dog poetasters. It was not so with the ancients who wore the bands of art, and who dwelt far from the common crowd within the temple of the Muses. As well-fed watchdogs, they were thus restrained from poking their noses into the accumulated filth of history.

There is more in the muzzle than one would think. It is a safeguard against the spread of the hydrophobia of literature, so prevalent in our own times, and requiring all the bullets of cold-blooded critics to keep it in check. Evils other than the unnatural howlings and riot of modern tragedy are caused by liberty. There is an unearthing of old bones, which are scraped, polished, and displayed as the product of that modern genius the nineteenth-century dramatist, who with tragic instinct consigns the memory of their real owners to eternal death and oblivion.

The tendency of some grovelling dogs thus to become resurrectionists is too well known to require further comment at my hands. Death to those who before us said what we will to say, “_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!_”

Little by little the plot expanded. When the pugs had revealed all their masters’ secrets and hidden thoughts, the masters themselves appeared, and in their turn gave us the paraphrase of what had preceded, together with the culmination of their passions. If you only knew how many odious persons I beheld. Imagine two old foxes in mourning for their tails: these with a couple of superannuated wolves, recumbent, {91} and gazing vacantly around; a pair of badly-licked dancing bears, waltzing to soft music; weasels with frayed ears and gloved hands, made up a staff of threadbare comedians, all professing their loves and passions on the stage. Yet I am told that outside the theatre door they would tear each other’s eyes out for a leg of mutton or horse’s ham. But I had for the moment forgotten that the secrets of public life should be carefully walled around, so I dutifully returned to my analysis, in, I own, a roundabout sort of way. The language was not very intelligible. It was all about the sorrows of unfortunate Queen Zemire and her lover Azor. You have no notion of the singular and unaccountable stuff crowded into this hybrid composition.

The beautiful Zemire is a Queen of Spain, descended from a noble stock, counting among her ancestors a jolly dog named Cæsar.

In the back-kitchen of the castle, and in the noble _rôle_ of turnspit, a mangey animal, but withal a worthy fellow, named Azor, turned the queen’s spit (while Queen Zemire had turned his head). He says—

“Belle Zemire, O vous, blanche comme l’hermine,
O mon bel ange à l’œil si doux
Quand donc à fin prendrez-vous
En pitié mon amour, au fond de la cuisine,” &c. &c.

These verses, improvised by the pale light of the lamp, were found admirable. The friends of the poet exclaimed, “Ah! sublime! They are perfumed with the profoundest sentiment!” In vain the linguists—curs, griffins, and boars—sought to criticise. “Why,” said they, “should kitchen and cookery in a high-class composition be mixed up with flowers and sentiment? What was there in a turnspit and its associations—the devouring appetite of the queen, &c.—to fan the flame of passion?” These expressions, let fall at random, nearly cost them their seats.

The verses were forcibly rendered by Azor, who scratched himself at intervals, either to relieve his feelings or lend piquancy to his love. At last the lover subsided into his daily barking prose.

“Zemire! Zemire! Oh how I long to kiss the ground beneath thy feet!” (in carrying out this ardent desire he would have encountered no reasonable difficulty, as the full-bodied lady left her footprints wherever she trod—this by the way). Azor howls in his agony of heart, when the kitchen-boy all at once throws some hot cinders into his eyes to remind him of his neglected duties at the spit.

I must tell you that in the castle there is a nasty dog, a Dane named {92} Du Sylva, an intimate friend of the Count’s horses, with whom, for his own pleasure, he goes hunting. He is, as you shall see, a cur fierce, jealous, implacable, and desperately wicked. He is hopelessly enamoured of the beautiful Zemire, who treats the attentions of this northern boor with scorn. What does the Dane do? He, of course, dissembles with such craft one would imagine he had forgotten the insults heaped upon him. Alas! the traitor is only biding his time. One day he finds Azor in the castle moat, looking fondly towards his lady’s nest. “Azor, follow me,” says the Dane. He obeyed, and followed with his tail hung pensively between his legs. What does the Dane then do? He led Azor to a neighbouring pool, and ordered him to plunge and remain there for an hour. Azor obeys gladly. The cool water soothes his skin, and carries off the taint of cooking. It imparts lustre to his disordered fur, grace to his sickly body, vivacity to his eyes, which have been dimmed by the light of the fire. Leaving the pool, Azor rolls with delight on the sweet-smelling grass, impregnating his coat with the odour of flowers. He completes his toilet by whitening his teeth against the lichen of an old tree. That done, he feels the return of youth. The warm blood throbs through his heart, and his pensive tail wags briskly with the sense of new life. The whole world seems to open before him. There is nothing to which he may not aspire, not even the paw of Zemire. At sight of these extraordinary transports the Dane laughed in his sleeve, like the crafty rascal he was. He seemed to mutter, “Curses fall upon you, fool! You shall pay dearly for my fellowship!”

I ought to tell you, master, that this scene was played with great success by the celebrated Laridon. He is perhaps rather stout and old for his _rôle_, nevertheless, as they say in the papers, his energy and _chic_ carry all before them.

Perhaps the finest scene was laid in the forest of Aranjuez, when the queen-dog walked pensively along with ears cast down, and a poodle held her graceful tail. Suddenly, at the bend of a path, she encounters Azor—Azor renewed, resplendent—the Azor of her dreams. Is it really he? Oh mystery! oh terror! oh joy!! Their eyes meet, and, eloquent with passion, tell their tale of love. Everything was forgotten in those moments of bliss. Had any one reminded Zemire that she filled one of the proudest thrones in the world, she would have replied, “What of that, so long as one loves?” Had Azor been informed of his humble position, he would simply {93} have shown his teeth. Oh delights, miseries, joys of love! and also, to conclude my exclamations, oh vanity of vanities! know that every door has a hinge, every lock a key, on the rose is a grub, in the {94} kennel a dog, and to every lamp, for the most cogent reason, there belongs a wick, and so in the forest of Aranjuez there lurks a terrible Dane who views our friends’ behaviour from afar.

“Ah! oh! so you love each other, do you? Tremble! tremble! for {95} your fate.” While speaking thus, when Zemire had quitted the scene, the Dane approached Azor. “So! so!” said he, “Zemire thinks you angelic in your borrowed beauty. You must now assume the skin of a porcupine, and with quills erect, dirty, hideous, smeared with sand and ashes, show yourself to Zemire, and break the spell that binds her!” Thus howled the Dane, giving full vent to his passion in foaming rage. Poor Azor obeyed, and appeared before his mistress. Standing beneath a frightful long-beaked heron, he bowed to the queen, declaring that he had played her false, as he was only an obscure turnspit, and begging her forgiveness. Then he remained motionless, prepared for his doom. Zemire cast herself at his feet, “Ah!” she said, “let me share your sorrows. I love you still, even in your vile condition. There! I give you my paw in the face of all the world.”

{96}

During this touching scene the whole house was moved to tears, and at the close came down with thunders of applause. Every one, beasts and birds—even to a flea on the tip of my nose—seemed delirious with excitement. With great presence of mind I bit the tail of an impulsive cock, arresting his flight to the stage to challenge the Dane. In a few soothing words I assured him that the villain was really a very decent fellow in his own house. At the same time I reminded him that, as the village cock, he might be missed in the morning from his dunghill, where he performed the useful office of heralding the dawn.

The curtain fell on the fourth act. As to the fifth, I do not intend to usurp your place as critic, but will conclude by saying that in this act the dogs had become tigers—a natural metamorphosis of which good authors avail themselves. The tiger, with equal consistency, killed his wife by mistake, and consoled himself by slaughtering his friends. It seems, when fairly married, Zemire became a tigress. This, I have heard, is one of those unaccountable changes which not unfrequently occur in real life. Be that as it may, the curtain at last fell on scenes of crime, murder, and confusion.

After the close of the drama, attendants handed round refreshments. As for me, I followed your example. As it was the first night of representation, I left the box at once with the air of one burdened with thought; and making my way to the green-room, joined a group of theatrical critics walking about with a supercilious pedantic air. One had the {97} sting of the wasp, another the beak of the vulture, a third the cunning of the fox. Beasts of prey were there, hungering for helpless victims. Lions proudly showing their teeth. Of mischievous animals of all sorts, it was a goodly company. I ought to inform you, as soon as it became known that you belonged to me I was permitted to go behind the scenes, and to cultivate the acquaintance of the actors. But I must now conclude this rambling review, a friendly greyhound is waiting to join me at supper.

{98}

THE PHILOSOPHIC RAT.

PERSONAGES.

GNAWER, _Rat with grey beard_. TROTTER, _A young rat, pupil of Gnawer_. BABOLIN, _Dispenser of holy water_. TOINON, _Daughter of Babolin_. A VOICE.

SCENE I.

A DINING-ROOM MODESTLY FURNISHED.

GNAWER _alone, coming and going, seemingly much preoccupied_.

My pupil Trotter is coming to share my dinner. I hope he may find no cause to regret his old master’s invitation [_smelling an old piece of cheese he found under the table_]. There now is a bit of cheddar whose delicious perfume would make a dead rat come to life! We shall hear what my pupil thinks of it. The rats of the rising generation are so strange they seem to care for nothing. Nothing pleases them, or dispels the frown they constantly wear. In my young days we were less fastidious, we took things as they came. One day we dined off corn, another off wood—wood or corn, it was all the same to us. Now, alas! all is changed. There is no contentment. If my pupils have bacon and nuts, they lament the absence of cheese. What is the world coming to? Trotter is late, I wonder if anything has happened to him. {99}

SCENE II.

THE OLD RAT AND HIS YOUNG PUPIL.

_Trotter._ [_Looking in at the window._] Master, may I come in?

_Gnawer._ What! by the window? can’t you find the door? But I forgot, you rats of the modern school never do as others do. Come, let us dine, the things have been waiting long enough.

_Trotter._ Master, it is no fault of mine if, instead of crawling under the door, I was obliged to make a long journey round and come over the roof.

_Gnawer._ [_Laughing._] Nor mine that I know of. [_He helps himself._] Try a little of this grilled nut; it is delicious!

_Trotter._ [_Gloomily._] I suppose it is my fate.

_Gnawer._ Again prating about fate. Can’t you leave fate alone?

_Trotter._ Master, fate is never tired of persecuting us. Is it not fate that has filled the hole you cut with such labour at the bottom of the door? so that your friends and neighbours might find no difficulty in visiting you.

_Gnawer._ And you really think that fate filled up the hole?

_Trotter._ What else could it be, tutor?

_Gnawer._ It was Toinon. [_He helps him._] This lard is delicious. There is no one save Toinon has such good lard.

_Trotter._ But who is Toinon, tutor?

_Gnawer._ The mistress of the house, daughter of Babolin. The most charming woman, oh! and such a worker. She toils at sewing from morning till night.

_Trotter._ And pray what interest can she have in stopping up holes?

_Gnawer._ What interest? [_Laughing._] Taste this cheddar. Why, her legs to be sure; Toinon hates draughts. Besides, she is a charming girl, who makes crumbs when eating, and always leaves the cupboard door open. She will make an excellent wife. I wish I could marry her.

_Trotter._ [_With bitterness._] You?

_Gnawer._ [_Good-naturedly._] Yes, I wish I could marry her—to a youth she loves. It would give me the greatest pleasure to make two such beings happy. Who can prevent me? {100}

_Trotter._ Reflect, master; you are but a miserable rat, and yet you speak of rendering human beings happy. We are of a despised race. There is nothing so mean in the eyes of men as rats. “Poor as a rat” is a common phrase with them.

_Gnawer._ Your temper is soured, my boy. Let us walk to aid digestion. The fresh air may clear your mind of these notions. Did you ever come across the songs of Béranger? He says that the poor, or rats, if you prefer it, have for their portion probity, wisdom, and happiness. A celebrated Scotch poet has even spoken of mice and men in the same line—

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
Gang aft a-gley.”

That line recalls some incidents that have come under my personal notice, where the wisdom of the rat proved superior to the schemes of men.

_Trotter._ Yes; it is all very well talking, nevertheless, the fact remains. We are a doomed race. Romantic ideas, however well expressed, will never feed the poor, or rats, when dying from hunger.

_Gnawer._ Yes; who is in the habit of dying from hunger? Are you? Did you die yesterday? Are you dying to-day?

_Trotter._ [_Aside in a mysterious tone._] Who knows? [_Aloud._] If I do not die, others do. Have you forgotten Ratapon and his numerous family? They suffered for several days from hunger: taking heart, they asked their neighbours for help; but the first they came to, a big fat porker, whose sty was full of corn and vegetables——

_Gnawer._ Well, I know what happened to them as well as you do. Roused by their cries, Mr. Pig looked over the wall, and addressing them in a surly tone, said, “What is all this noise? What do you vagrants want?” “Your charity, my lord.” “Be off instantly. How dare you interrupt me in the middle of my dinner?”

_Trotter._ That was all that came of it; only, next morning the bodies of Ratapon and his family were found scattered over the country. Want and despair had killed them.

_Gnawer._ Want and despair! You are drawing on your imagination, my boy. It was simply poison—some balls of lard-and-arsenic which they greedily swallowed without waiting to send them to the parish analyst.

_Trotter._ What more simple, more soothing than death? Is it not {101} our lot? Are we not menaced with cats, poison, and traps every day of our lives?

_Gnawer._ Yet we—some of us—reach a happy and honoured old age.

_Trotter._ Yes; nevertheless, it seems to me that every hour of our life is full of misery.

_Gnawer._ A thousand evils and misfortunes overcome are preferable to the event that deprives one of life. {102}

_Trotter._ Better for fools, but the courageous rat has no love for a life full of torments, and casts it from him.

_Gnawer._ Ah, so you contemplate suicide? and would withal be accounted a wise and courageous rat. It is a gay thought to toss lightly away the life you lack the courage to defend and protect.

_Trotter._ This is no time for jesting; I am sick of life, and I give it up.

_Gnawer._ Believe me, you are wrong. Life is not a bad thing. It has its hours of joy and hours of sorrow. I myself have more than once seen our last foe face to face, and yet I live. The traps made by man are not so cleverly constructed that one may not escape from them, and the cat’s claws are not always fatal. If my poor father were living, he would tell you how by patience and perseverance a rat may draw himself out of even the most perilous situations. I was still very young when one day the smell of a nice piece of bacon led him into one of those traps, vulgarly called rat-traps. We all met around his prison, and imitating our poor mother, wept and clamoured for his release. My father, calm, dignified, and self-possessed even in misfortunes, said, “Stop your crying and work, every mother’s son of you. The enemy may be hidden only a few steps off. Those traps invented by the perversity of man are simple enough. The door hangs on a lever” (my father had finished his education by devouring a dry scientific encyclopædia; he therefore knew a little of everything). “It is said that a lever and a weight might lift the world. If by applying weight to this lever you can give me back my liberty, you shall have achieved a nobler work. All of you climb to the top of my prison and hang on to the long end of the lever.” Executing his orders promptly, we succeeded in raising the door and saving my father. Suddenly, with a terrible spring, a furious Tom cat leaped upon us. “Fly!” cried my father, whose courage remained unshaken—“fly! I alone will face the enemy.” A fierce struggle ensued, in which my father, severely wounded, lost his tail, but not his life. Soon after he regained our domestic hole, and while we licked the blood from his wounds, he smilingly said to us, “You see, my children, danger is like drifting wood—portentous in the distance, paltry when it has drifted past.”

_Trotter._ [_Coolly._] That is just my sentiment; I have no dread of danger, I could face anything. {103}

At this moment a noise is heard like a pebble on the window, Trotter is about to flee, Gnawer prevents him.

_Gnawer._ Ah, my friend, where is your boasted courage? You {104} begin to face danger by running away. Calm yourself, I know this signal. It is Toinon’s lover throwing stones at the window. We may remain here. Lovers are dangerous to no one, they only think of themselves.

SCENE III.

THE SAME.

Toinon has softly opened the door and crossed the room on tiptoe; she approaches the window and whispers, “Is that you, Paul? How very imprudent! Oh! if my father were to come in.”

_A Voice._ It is now two whole days since I saw you. I could wait no longer. Is your father still opposed to me?

_Toinon._ More than ever, love! He means to go to law.

_Paul._ What? to law about my cousin Michonnet’s house?

_Toinon._ Exactly.

_Paul._ Seeing that it was left to me lawfully, it is mine.

_Toinon._ My father has a will which, he says, renders yours invalid.

_Paul._ He is wrong. Besides, if he would only consent to our union the house would be his as well as mine.

_Toinon._ He says he hates you, and it would be better I should die an old maid than marry a scamp.

_Paul._ [_Piteously._] Do you also, my darling, share his opinion?

_Toinon._ Alas!

_Gnawer._ [_Aside._] That alas goes to my heart. It says more than enough.

_Paul._ Heavens! your father is coming down the street! I am off.

_Toinon._ [_Retreating from the window._] If only he escapes unobserved. If he does not, what shall I do? [_She enters her room._]

SCENE IV.

THE SAME.

_Trotter._ Hah! hah! Old Babolin will spoil your matrimonial scheme, my master!

_Gnawer._ I have decided that this marriage shall take place. {105}

_Trotter._ That of course alters the matter. If you have pledged your word, Babolin must fall.

_Gnawer._ Yes, certainly!

_Trotter._ Is Babolin a weather-cock, that you can turn him at will?

_Gnawer._ No; he is anything but a weather-cock. It would almost take a surgical operation to get a notion out of his rat’s head when it is once there.

_Trotter._ [_Astonished._] Is the parent of this fair girl a rat?

_Gnawer._ No, not exactly. He is what men call a Church Rat. He dispenses holy water at the door of Notre Dame, and sells candles to the faithful, which they piously light in honour of God and the saints.

_Trotter._ I know. The candles which are lit on the shrine when their owners are present, and carefully extinguished and saved when they have gone, by order of the thrifty saints perhaps. So men in their pious thrift exact a heavy percentage of profit out of holy things.

_Gnawer._ Come! come! You may grow indignant at your leisure. I hear Babolin approaching. Let us leave him a clear field; he might tread on us.

SCENE V.

_Enter_ BABOLIN.

So, so! In spite of my express wishes he meets my daughter. Comes like a thief to the window under cover of night. I shall show them what I am. [_Calls Toinon; Toinon enters._] Where are my rights as a father? where are they? It is Mr. Paul who mocks me! [_As if struck with an idea, he pauses._] What if I said nothing about my mischances? If I acted the clement loving father. Paul loves my daughter. My daughter loves Paul. If, like the really kind-hearted man that I am, I yield to their wishes? That would do me honour, and make me appear before the world a model of virtue and forbearance. [_Approaching his daughter._] Say, my little Toinon, does it grieve you very much not to wed your Paul? [_Toinon, whose heart is too full for speech, bursts into tears._] Toinon, if instead of going to the lawyer we go to the notary?

_Toinon._ [_Smiling like the sun through a rain-cloud._] To the notary, my father? {106}

_Babolin._ Yes, my darling, that he may hasten to draw up your marriage contract.

_Toinon._ With whom, my dear papa?

_Babolin._ With Paul.

_Toinon._ [_Throwing her arms round his neck._] O my dear father! how good! how kind of you! I dared not speak openly to you for fear of giving you pain; yet without Paul I should have died.

_Babolin._ Confound it! No. You must not dream of dying. Come to the notary.

SCENE VI.

STITCH-GNAWER AND LITTLE TROTTER.

_Gnawer._ Well, what do you say to all this, my little pupil?

_Trotter._ I say you are a sorcerer. As to the will of the late Mr. Michonnet, what has become of it? have you hidden it?

_Gnawer._ I inherit my father’s love of books and curious documents. He was a learned rat, having devoured some of the oldest and dryest works in his master’s library. It will not surprise you, therefore, to learn that this morning I gratified my natural taste, and at the same time served my young friends, by breakfasting off the will of the deceased Michonnet. Thus, thanks to my timely aid, a lawsuit—one of the greatest evils of this lying age—has been nipped in the bud, and a wedding concluded. You see, my dear pupil, that notwithstanding our miserable condition, we, if we do not neglect our opportunity, can render the greatest service to humanity. But what ails you that you caress your tail so pensively?

_Trotter._ Oh, I was only thinking that we would neglect our opportunities were we not present after the wedding breakfast. There will be no end of good things going.

_Gnawer._ Very good. You have wisely abandoned the idea of suicide?

_Trotter._ I should rather think I have. The world has many traps; but it has also its tit bits of old cheese, for which sudden death would spoil one’s appetite.

_Gnawer._ These are sage reflections, but pray bear in mind the lesson of the lost will. The destruction of this instrument, so small in itself, happily turned the tide of events for generations to come. The wise householder sets his foot on the spark that would have {107} consumed his whole substance. The loving heart crushes the first cruel word that would wreck his happiness. The mariner marks the little cloud on the horizon, furls his sails, and his trusty bark rides out the tempest. Your humble servant has gnawed through the lines by which an unworthy father left an inheritance of misery to his children.

{108}

THE SUFFERINGS OF A BEETLE.

Violet, who is the most amiable and sensible dove in the world, wore, the other day, a very pretty pin in her collar. A lettered antiquarian owl told her it was perfectly charming.

“Indeed,” said Violet, “it is a present from my godmother, and represents an insect on a peony leaf. By means of this talisman common sense is secured, enabling one to see all things in their true light, not through the illusive medium of passion.”

The owl approached to examine the jewel, but the dove, perceiving that her white neck against which it rested interfered with his minute inspection, took it off and gave it to him.

“I will return it to-morrow,” said the bird of night. “During my nocturnal studies the insect may disclose its history, then will I know the secret of your wisdom and beauty.”

As soon as the owl reached home, seeking the retirement of his study, he placed the pin on the table. Directly he had done so, the beetle walked about on the leaf. The insect was green, and its whole demeanour spoke of a worthy and candid nature. Passing a polished foot over its eyes, stretching out first one wing then the other, it directed its pointed proboscis to the owl, and with a mingled air of modesty and intelligence proceeded to relate its story in the following words:—

“I was born on the banks of the Seine, in a garden named after a temple of the goddess Isis. My parents had been consigned to their last resting-place by weevils, when I woke to the consciousness of existence beneath the shade of a _Mimosa pigra_, the sensitive idler, whose juice was my first aliment. The wife of an excellent gardener {109} had taken me in, but while she was absent at market I expanded my wings and flew away. My companions were simply beasts, so I found my sweetest associates in wild flowers, and poppies became my special favourites. I was already well grown, and amused myself by looking for bushy roses, and chasing the busy bees who stopped for a moment to joke with me. Alas! these joyous days passed like a dream. A craving for the unknown gradually forced itself upon me and rendered my simple habits contemptible. I at length decided to raise the veil of the future, and have my fortune told by a weird capricorn beetle who passed for a soothsayer, and who spent her days in a lonely part of the garden.

“She wore a long robe covered with cabalistic signs. Setting out for her cave, the crone received me graciously, and after describing certain mystic circles with her horns, she examined my foot, saying, ‘Thou art one of a noble line. The horns of thy forefathers have been proudly exalted, and as woefully depressed by fate. Whence comest thou to this lonely place? I had deemed thy race long extinct, had I not seen thee. The armour of thy ancestors can alone be found in the collections of entomologists. Happiness may never be thine!’

“ ‘Now then, old woman,’ I said, ‘my ancestors are dead and no manner of good to me. Tell me, once for all, am I likely to play an important part in the world, or am I not? I feel fit for anything.’

“ ‘Hear him, ye powers invisible!’ cried the witch. ‘Thou wouldst willingly be a Don Juan! consent to drink the nectar of the gods! feast with the immortals, and cancel the debt of thine imprudence by suffering the tortures of Tantalus. Like Prometheus, thou wouldst steal the celestial fire at the risk of being torn by vultures. Alas! thou wilt need no prompting to find misery enough and to spare. I will endow thee with the vile instinct of common sense, remove the mask from all that glitters and is not gold; dissolve the fair form of things, and reveal the ghastly skeletons they conceal.’

“I left this cave and its hideous old witch, feeling discomfited by her strange prognostics. For all that, I still burned with the desire to cast myself into the garden of Isis, where thousands of insects swarmed, rejoicing in its intoxicating air. One day, while taking a morning walk through a kitchen-garden, I fell in with a rhinoceros beetle meditating beneath the shade of a lettuce. Trusting to his wisdom, I humbly besought him to favour me with some of those flowery and precious counsels which Mentor bestowed upon Telemachus. {110}

{111}

“ ‘It will afford me the greatest pleasure in life,’ he replied. ‘Your appearance recalls some famous old pictures in Lord Diamond’s collection. You evidently come of a brilliant line of beetles. Do you see the bloom of luxury in yonder garden? Your horns and credentials will at once gain you an introduction there into our set—the finest society in the world. The life will be new to you, but the jargon is easy. You must make some polite contortions before the mistress of the house, and when you have listened attentively to all the current nonsense of the day, you will be regaled with a little hot water, after which you can amuse yourself with the dragon-flies. Take care to listen patiently to all the unkind things whispered about intimate friends. You are not required to make remarks. Judicious silence will better establish your claims to sentiment, poetic feeling, and profundity, than any remarks you could hope to offer. Your acquirements will be gauged by your power of appreciating the wit or wisdom of those who address you. Above all, be careful to whom you give your heart, as you are almost certain to be deceived. These will make up the list of your pleasures, while your duties will be light and easily performed. Five or six times a year military dress must be worn and tactics studied, when you shall be required to obey implicitly the orders of the hornets.’

“ ‘Five or six times!’ I exclaimed. ‘What a frightful task!’

“ ‘The country requires it. Go now and enjoy your privileges. You are warned.’

“This gloomy picture of my prospective joys and privileges would have scared any beetle less green and less intrepid than myself. The impetuosity of youth carried me on, and I looked upon the rhinoceros as an old croaker, who had seen too much of the world and of this particular garden.

“ ‘Come with me,’ said he at last, ‘society waits our appearance.’

“I formed a close intimacy with a May bug, who one day said, ‘I shall take you to the theatre, and other places of amusement, where we may spend a pleasant evening.’

“My new friend asked if I was a lover of music. ‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘in the garden of my nativity we had some very fine tom-tits.’

“ ‘We have something much better than that to offer you. I shall introduce you to the Academy, where we shall listen to the sublime in art.’

“My companion, before entering, readjusted his feelers and collar. {112} He then procured tickets from a wood-louse stationed at the entrance of a large acanthus flower. The concert-hall was filled by one of the most brilliant assemblages of the season. Certain well-known members of the insect aristocracy thronged the private boxes, gazing around with that air of superfine insolence which freezes the muscles of the face into an expression of languid-icy indifference. Slender-waisted wasps and dragon-flies formed charming groups; while a crowd of restless fleas filled the upper gallery. Flies in solemn black—as if mourning for the frivolity of the hour—were seated in the pit, patiently waiting to regale their ears with the music.

“ ‘This gathering,’ I said, ‘conveys a pleasing impression to my mind. It is astonishing to see youth and beauty so thoroughly engrossed with the prospect of listening to good music.’

“ ‘Do not deceive yourself, my friend,’ replied the May bug. ‘It is not the art of the musician that is the chief attraction. These are, most of them, slaves of fashion, who know little and care less about music. Chut! here is the first harvest-fly about to open the concert with her celebrated song.’

“The singer, decked in resplendent wings, sang something thoroughly dramatic. Her notes, sometimes loud, sometimes low, deep, high, long, short, were hurled into the hall in a manner so utterly perplexing that I whispered to my friend, ‘Do you think she is all right?’

“ ‘Right?’ he replied. ‘My uninitiated friend, you are listening to a prima donna, the finest soprano on the stage. The rendering of the cantata is sublime. Mark the modulations of the voice, the syncopation of the passages, the—so to speak—rhythmical delivery, the volume of sound filling every corner of the room, the’——

“ ‘But after all,’ said I, interrupting him, ‘as a mere display of the variety of sounds contained in the voice, the performance is perhaps very fine, yet I would rather listen to the heart-song of a linnet than all the throat-melodies of the world.’

“ ‘Believe me, you must be mistaken,’ said the Bug. ‘She is a universal favourite; and, moreover, anything so popular must be in itself good.’

“The fly was followed by a band of a hundred cathedral crickets who intoned a chorus. They seemed to be so nervously affected each one about his notes that the fall of the curtain afforded me great relief. {113}

“The interval was filled by the evolutions of a grasshopper ballet corps, who exercised their feet and legs quite as much as the others had their lungs. It seems—so my companion says—they express in their gestures and steps many of the most subtle feelings of the heart. As for myself, I failed to perceive anything beyond the rather indecent gambols of a band of immodestly-dressed female grasshoppers. The display, although utterly devoid of the refinement which each male member of the assembly claimed as his special attribute, seemed to afford unmixed delight. To tell the truth, I myself was beginning to take some interest in the spectacle, when the whole band disappeared, and the din of instruments began louder than ever. Oh my poor head! how it ached! I was compelled to seek the fresh air.

“ ‘Is this what you promised me?’ I said to the May-bug. ‘I asked for songs, and in place of them you have taken me to listen to a troop of liberated fiends, who play all manner of tricks with divine harmony! Take me, I pray you, where one may listen to music unaccompanied by swords, torches, and operatic tinsel.’

“ ‘Come, then,’ said my friend, ‘we will go to a place where music is heard in all its purity. There you will be enchanted by the rich voice of a trumpeter beetle of world-wide fame.’

“We winged our way to a fine red tulip that marked the entrance of the hall. As soon as we had seated ourselves, the trumpeter appeared and sang the finest air in a masterpiece. This time I was delighted; his rich deep voice reminded one of the boom of distant thunder, the roll of the sea, or the noise of a steam-power mill. The song was short, and followed by the croaking chorus of miserable crickets. The contrast was so marked as to be revolting. Here my friend explained that each musical star is always attended by a constellation of minor luminaries, whose feeble light is borrowed from the centre round which they revolve. Theatrical managers profit by their study of natural phenomena. They say, ‘As there is only one sun in heaven gladdening the earth, so in the theatre we should have one star at a time, so managed as to make the most of its refulgence.’ Two stars cannot be allowed to cross each other’s track on the stage. Such an irregularity would result in the total eclipse of the one, and in theatrical chaos.

“ ‘Come, let us go elsewhere. Like a boy with sweets, I have kept the best to the last. You must tighten the drum of your ear, adjust your sense of hearing to its finest pitch, in order to appreciate the delicate strains that should touch your heart.’ {114}

{115}

“ ‘I hope,’ I replied, ‘to tune my tympanum so as to gather up the finest chords.’

“ ‘I am by no means certain about that,’ said my Mentor. ‘Even I myself, who am thoroughly initiated, lose some of the finest phrases. One must know by a sort of intuition how to discover the sentiments of the composer, just as a gourmet selects the carp’s tongue, while a vulgar person polishes the bones. Wherein do you think consists the charm of instrumental music?’

“ ‘In the selection of a choice melody,’ I replied, ‘and the happy association of such harmony as shall lend it force and beauty; just as in a picture the true artist so marshals his lights and colours as to give power of expression to his composition.’

“ ‘You are quite wrong,’ said he; ‘such notions are at least a century old. Nowadays the charm of music consists in the agility of the performer’s hands, in the shaggy vegetable-looking growth of the insect who manipulates the sonorous tool. It is undeniable that the harmony and sweetness of instrumental music lies in the nervous appearance of the animal who wakes the articulation of his instrument, in the colour of his skin, roll of his eyes, and the curious manner in which he curves his spine round the violoncello. We are about to listen to one of those profound artists who give a mystic, and at the same time lucid, rendering of the vague harmony that breathes in the moods and passions of life.’

“ ‘Oh, bother!’ I said, ‘such fine affairs will be far beyond my dull comprehension. No matter, lead on, my curiosity exceeds my discretion.’

“May-bug introduced me into the open calyx of a _Datura fastuosa_, richly decorated for an instrumental concert, to which one could only gain admittance by paying a very high price. The assembly was even more brilliant than that of the Academy. A number of insects were ranged round an instrument with a very long tail, from which were to be drawn prodigies of harmony by the feet of a famous centipede.

“After waiting two hours the artists at last arrived; the Centipede seated himself before his instrument, and looking calmly round at all present, a profound silence was at once established. The piece opened with a succession of thunder peals rolling on from the lowest to the highest notes on the board. The performer then addressed himself, though I thought regretfully, to some of the medium keys, after which {116} commenced a vague slow adagio of an undistinguishable measure, rendered still more confusing by graces of manipulation. The air was poor, but what matters the poorness of the stuff when it is so covered with embroidering as to become invisible? This was only a prelude to give a foretaste of the piece. As there were many thunderings and preliminary canterings over the keys—reminding one of a horse getting into form for a great leap—I fancied that something grand would follow; yet it was quite the contrary. The dark foreboding cloud of the introduction cleared away, and was succeeded by a popular ballet-tune, a brisk lively air, which seemed to dance gaily over the green turf.

“This spurious air, which had sprung up like a jack-in-the-box, had been danced to for at least ten years; one had had enough of it in every possible form, but the audience seemed to recognise in the air a delightful old friend.

“At the close of this inspired theme and its endless chain of varieties the performer played the tune with one foot on the base keys, while the remaining ninety-nine feet were producing a furious running accompaniment on the treble, ascending and descending in interminable runs of demi-semiquavers.

“These were repeated over and over to the infinitely growing delight of the assembly. All at once the clamour ceased and the virtuoso counted time with the treble, like the slow tolling of the bell of doom that seemed to say, ‘Tremble! tremble! thy death is at hand!’ The artist-executioner then seized the doomed air as a Turk would a Christian, tore off its limbs one by one, cut up its simple face, twisted its fingers, and dashed its common metre into the splinters of six-eight time. Here, in a frenzy of rage, he tossed the disjointed members on to the hot anvil of his key-board and pounded them into dust, blinding and stifling one’s senses.

“The Centipede continued to hammer louder and louder, faster and faster, keeping the dust of the pulverised air floating in a tempest around, and his audience in a tumult of excitement. The measure was left to look out for itself amid the din and confusion. The insects, seized with the contagion of the musical slaughter, kept time with the fluctuating measure until their bodies shook as if with palsy.

“Composedly retiring within myself, I escaped the excitement, while the piece concluded with prolonged banging of chords, by which one discovered the true genius of the Centipede.

“ ‘Oh, the power of music!’ said a moth to her neighbour. ‘My {117} soul has been wafted to the luminous spheres of the firmament, ah me!’ and she fainted away. Another exclaimed, ‘How wonderful! In these few minutes I have climbed to the last rung of the ladder of passion, love, jealousy, despair, fury—I have experienced all these in the twinkling of an eye. For pity’s sake, some air—open a window!’ ‘Oh!’ cried a third, ‘I have become the slave of harmony. Why can it not leave my imagination to slumber in peace? I have seen white ants devouring their young; bees stinging each other; mosquitoes drawing blood from stones; centipedes committing suicide; charming butterflies metamorphosed into death’s-head moths.’

“ ‘Alas!’ said an old Cantharis, ‘what delight, what bliss to possess such genius! This centipede is truly wonderful! wonderful!!’

“I turned towards a large gadfly who appeared to have some common sense, and inquired timidly if it were not my ignorance which rendered me unable to appreciate the marvels which are being applauded.

“ ‘Imprudent fellow!’ replied he, drawing me into a corner. ‘If you were heard letting fall such remarks you would be torn to pieces by the Cantharis. You had better go with the herd; say it’s no end of soul-stirring, you know, and all that kind of thing. It is fashion, my boy. The Centipede is all the rage.’

“ ‘Thanks for your warning, but is one compelled to come and listen to these torments of h-harmony?’

“ ‘No, not exactly compelled, and yet we cannot escape it. It’s supposed to be the correct thing to do.’

“The emotion had now subsided, and we had to listen to a distinguished earwig violinist, who followed so closely in the strain of his predecessor that I will dismiss him without further comment.

“Before leaving the hall I was introduced to the Centipede, and congratulated him on his power over his instrument. The fellow turned away indignantly, saying, ‘You take me, then, for a sort of musical machine. A day is coming in which I shall prove to the universe that my own compositions are alone worthy of my genius as a performer. Good-evening, Mr. Beetle.’ A slight touch of vanity this, but the faintest trace of it! Ugh!

“The May-bug approached me with a triumphant air, ‘I told you we should have a splendid evening.’ {118}

“ ‘So very splendid,’ I replied, ‘I should like at once to sleep off its effect.’

“Next day my guide led me to understand that it was expedient to go and visit some death’s-head moths who view nature from their own ideal standpoint and endeavour to imitate its forms and colours.

“The majority of these unfortunates had nothing more left than mere stumps of their once ample wings; they had lost them in ambitious flight while yet too young. The first moth we visited spoke very highly of his craft.

“ ‘Nothing good can ever be achieved,’ he said, ‘without art, and there is no art without its rules. The precepts of the masters must be followed. No composition can possibly be worth the canvas on which it is painted unless it will bear the tests of law. To produce a good picture, it is necessary to select from nature’s storehouse; but to select only such elements as are pleasing to the eye and taste, and to reject all that are offensive. I have striven to carry out and embody all the rules of art in the composition I am about to show you.’

“The Moth then unveiled a large canvas, representing a battle of the animalcules, seen by the microscope in a drop of water. He could not have hit upon a happier subject to display not alone his knowledge of art, but of the fierce passions which characterise even the lowest living organisms. The distinct genera and species were treated with masterly skill. The complicities of structure in the Rotifera lent force and dignity to the action; while the breadth of expression in some of the mouths, the dangerous attitude of the heads, the curves of the tails and antennæ, all contributed to render this one of the most striking productions of modern art.

“In the next studio we visited, the Moth had met with an accident; he had singed his wings by venturing too near his light (candle-light). For all that, we found him a most enthusiastic limner, who discoursed like a lunatic on the subtle fire of genius. His speciality was portrait-painting, about which he had his own notions.

“ ‘It is necessary,’ he said, ‘in order to idealise the subject, to carefully study the habits of plant life, and impart something of its grace and tenderness to the outlines of the insect who is sitting for a portrait. It is wonderful to observe the effect produced by peculiar habits of life, and most necessary for the artist to note their influences in the treatment of a subject. One requires to make one’s self master of the life and thoughts of the sitter, so as to give a poetic rendering {119} to his idiosyncrasy. Thus the low-life vulgar habits of a patron which impress their stamp on his physiognomy must be studiously concealed beneath a virtuous mask of paint and outline. In this way we depict what the insect under happier influences might have been, in place of what he really is.’

“ ‘In other words,’ I said, ‘you portray your client as the insect {120} God made him before he himself wrecked the fair image by giving himself up to the works of the devil. In this way I suppose you serve God and Mammon at the same time. After all, truth is truth, whether on canvas or in conversation, and it seems to me that you prostitute your sublime art by handing down painted lies to posterity.’ We had to leave this studio, as the new light I had thrown on this moth’s studies singed his wings afresh.

“My Mentor next led me to a brilliant group of the _Coccus cacti_, or cochineal insects, from the forests of the ‘Far East,’ who were awkwardly colouring dead leaves.

“ ‘Strangers,’ said one of them, ‘there has been only one great epoch for the fine arts.’

“I was about to suggest that there had been four great epochs, and to concede that one of the four had perhaps been the greatest of all.

“ ‘The ancients!’

“ ‘That will do,’ said one of the painters. ‘The ancients were children, chrysalides groping in darkness.’

“ ‘Perhaps you deem the Augustine epoch the greatest?’

“ ‘The age of Augustus! What of that? We know nothing about it.’