THE FAERY YEAR 



Confusion piled on confusion. The bee cluster is 

 sedateness compared with this scene. True, an ant 

 in difficulty, trying to drag a burden of twig 

 absurdly out of proportion to its own weight 

 and size up the moving hill, is instantly aided 

 by other ants. Here is no need of " antennal 

 language." The burden is shoved, dragged, hoisted 

 with a kind of exasperation of energy, over all 

 obstacles including struggling ants beneath, around 

 and off jerk the aiders hither, thither, anywhere, 

 to seize something else. The ant is often held up 

 to us by moralists. We are advised to copy him. 

 But to copy the ant would be to lead a life of helter- 

 skelter. What, no doubt, is highly effective on the 

 ant-hill would be misdirected energy among human 

 beings. We may not see right, perhaps we only see 

 the very superficies of things in the ant world, but 

 it does look as if these great mounds were piled up 

 by intense, uneconomized physical endeavour rather 

 than by scientific method. As to this "antennal 

 language " shall we ever translate it into human 

 speech, or must it ever be an undeciphered page in 

 the book of knowledge ? Nobody who has watched 

 the ant on the mound or the bee on the alighting 

 board can doubt that communication is effected 

 through the antennae. It is the language of touch. 



Anodyne of Dawn 



What a strange and enchanted land it is we see 

 through the window in the slatey dawn of a May 

 118 



