228 THE TYRANT OF NATURE. 
this strange sensitive creature explained to me perfectly the very 
opposite sentiments with which the spider inspires us,—those of repul- 
sion and attraction. We start away from it, and yet we draw near to 
it. It is so coarse, and yet, at the same time, so prodigiously sensitive ! 
It breathes as we do. And the delicate tubercle which secretes its 
silk, like a milky cloud (as the microscope shows us), is the most 
feminine organ which exists, perhaps, in nature. 
Alas, it is alone! Except a few species (mygales) in which the 
father renders some assistance to the mother, it expects no help. 
The male, after its moment of love, becomes, indeed, an enemy. Cruel 
consequences of misery! It perceives that its children are capable of 
furnishing it with food. But the mother, who is bigger than he, makes 
a similar reflection—thinks that the eater is eatable——and frequently 
crunches her spouse. 
These atrocious events never happen, I am confident, in climates 
where ease and abundance do not deprave their natural disposition. 
But in our well-peopled countries, with game very rare, and competition 
of extreme violence, these unfortunates act towards one another like 
the wretched castaways on the raft of the Medusa. 
A cruel tyrant, the stomach, dominates over all nature, and van- 
quishes even love. Passion, in an anxious and restless being like the 
spider, is very mistrustful. At the height of his devotion, the lean and 
feeble male dares only approach the majestic lady with a timid rever- 
ence and the utmost reserve. He advances, he retires, he watches ; 
he seems to ask himself if he has at all succeeded in subduing the 
haughty creature. He resorts to the timid methods of a slow 
magnetism, and especially to an extreme patience. He puts little 
faith in the first signs, and does not willingly yield his confidence. 
And, finally, when the adored object shows herself sensible of his 
sincerity, and grows ardent in her expansion of soul, he does not so 
wholly trust in her but what he will escape, and fly with all his 
speed, at some sudden impulse, and under the influence of an indescrib- 
able panic. 
Such is the terrible idyl of the dusky lovers of our ceilings. Among 
