166 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



This little butterfly, some would say, is of no use to man. 

 Its splendid costume and graceful motions only delight the 

 eye for a transient moment, and even while we admire there 

 hovers in the air a rapacious dragon-fly, which pounces 

 upon its beautiful form and destroys it at once. ^^ Sic 

 transit gloria niuncli!'''' the moralist exclaims — thus vanishes 

 all of glory in the world ! So passed away the beautiful 

 Mary, Queen of Scots, the lovely Anne Boleyn, and Marie 

 Antoinette, Queen of France, falling from the climax of 

 splendor into a cruel and ignominious death ! So vanishes 

 all that's beautiful, and of what use is it? The meteor 

 sparkles and is gone, the flower blooms and fades away, the 

 lightning's flash illumines heaven for a moment, and then 

 only leaves "the dark more darkling." 



True, but the impress of the beautifal, like that of the 

 good, is never lost upon the human mind. The most strik- 

 ing instances of manly courage, of female devotion, of he- 

 roic fortitude, of intellectual greatness, have been concen- 

 trated in the work of transient moments, and those moments 

 have become moments of supernatural power ; like electric 

 currents, their eflfects have spread through never-ending 

 human circles. Magic words have reverberated through 

 successive generations, and their eloquence been as deeply 

 felt ages after their first utterance. The ocean's unfath- 

 omed depth and the starry heaven's unlimited space have 

 in every age proclaimed Nature's supremacy over man. A 

 brute sees nothing of the beautiful, he but feels the control 

 of a superior speaking through his master's eye ; but man, 

 whose destiny is immortal, learns, from transient glimpses 

 of the beautiful in nature, the perfection of taste and feel- 

 ing to which his spirit must attain as he travels onward 

 through eternal spheres. Who, then, will despise the wing- 

 ed beauty that flits before his gaze, or pronounce that use- 

 less which a Father's hand Ixith made ? 



