34 BItTTTSH BUTTERFLIES. 



like tilings. In fact, I have nothing to S!{y in the 

 butterfly's favour, except that it is a jcy to the deep, 

 minded and to the simple hearted, to the sage, and, still 

 better, to the child — that it gives an earnest of a better 

 world, not vaguely and generally, as does every " thing 

 of beauty," but with clearest aim and purpose, through 

 one of the most strikingly perfect and beautiful analo- 

 gies that we can find throughout that vast Creation, 

 where — 



" All animals are living hieroglyphs." 1 



The butterfly, then, in its own progressive stages of 

 caterpillar, chrysalis, and perfect insect, is an emblem 

 of the human soul's progress through earthly life and 

 death, to heavenly life. 



Even the ancient Greeks, with their imperfect lights, 

 Tecognised this truth, when they gave the same name, 

 Psyche (^vxrj), to the soul, or spirit of life, and to the 

 butterfly, and sculptured over the effigy of one dead the 

 figure of a butterfly, floating away, as it were, in his 

 breath ; while poets of all nations have since followed 

 up the simile. 



And this analogy is not only a mere general resem* 

 blance, but holds good through its minute details to a 

 marvellous extent ; to trace wh ich fully would require 

 volumos, while in thi3 place the slightest sketch only 

 can be given. 



First, there is the grovelling caterpillar state, em- 



1 &2ey , a« Fates." 



