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 mundi!” 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 beautiful, 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 effects 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 hath made? 
