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 1 a rapacious dragon-fly, which pounces 

 upon its beautiful form and destroys it at once. &quot;Sic 

 transit gloria mundi /&quot; 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 1.3 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 &quot;the dark more darkling.&quot; 



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- 

 omcd 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? 



