The Nuptial Flight 



I fancy my good corn-thrower there could 

 not understand my tending him without 

 any profit to myself. He was satisfied 

 that there must be some underhand 

 scheme, and he declined to be my dupe. 

 More than one before him, richer or 

 poorer, has acted in similar fashion, if not 

 worse. It did not occur to him that he 

 was lying when he spread those inventions 

 abroad ; he merely obeyed a confused 

 command of the morality he saw about 

 him. He yielded unconsciously, against 

 his will, as it were, to the all-powerful de- 

 sire of the general malevolence. . . . But 

 why complete a picture with which all are 

 familiar who have spent some years in the 

 country ? Here we have the second sem- 

 blance that some will call the real truth. 

 It is the truth of practical life. It un- 

 doubtedly is based on the most precise, 

 the only, facts that one can observe and 

 test. 



" 337 



