110 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE FAIKY SAILOE AND HIS COUSINS. 



WHO has not heard of the argonaut, or paper nautilus? 

 One of the most vivid recollections of our early read 

 ing presents us with a little boatman, in his &quot; shelly bark,&quot; 



wafted over the placid surface 

 of a summer sea. With tiny 

 sail upraised, the favoring 

 breeze bears him securely on 

 ward ; but let the winds escape 

 from their JEolian caves, and 

 the billows wake from their 

 liquid slumbers, and down 



Fig. 42. The Paper Nautilus (Argo- 



nautaArgo). glides our tiny boatman with 



his shelly bark, and finds a safe retreat among the marble 

 corridors of the millepores and the madrepores. Montgom 

 ery, in his &quot; Pelican Island,&quot; has thus embalmed the fable : 



1 Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, 

 Keel upward, from the deep emerged a shell, 

 Shaped like the moon ere half her orh is filled. 

 Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose, 

 And moved at will along the yielding wave. 

 The native pilot of this little hark 

 Put out a tier of oars on either side, 

 Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail, 

 And mounted up and glided down the billow 

 In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air, 

 And wonder in the luxury of light.&quot; 



It seems a pity to spoil so pretty a fable, and one, too, 

 that has lived since the days of Aristotle. But the fable 

 of the argonaut has been spoiled by the industry of a lady. 



