392 TEACHINGS OF THE SPIDER. 



blessing, weave themselves into wealth and procure a plentiful 

 estate." 



But while the idle out of mischief may take a lesson of 

 reproof, the wavering or the idle, out of faint-heartedness, may 

 derive one of encouragement from the perseverance of the 

 " money-spinning " family. We have all read how that the 

 royal hero Bruce, when fleeing before his foes a hunted wan- 

 derer, took, as an omen and an oracle, the labours of a spider, 

 making his own decision for a last and final venture dependent, 

 with the fate of Scotland, on the success or failure of its seventh 

 effort for attachment of its line. How often has what is called 

 our destiny, be we as individuals great or humble, seemed sus- 

 pended on a thread as slender, a thread we are too apt to look on 

 as a Parcas's line, the work of, and liable to be cut in two by, 

 a capricious power out of and independent of ourselves. 



But not only have hope and courage been infused into the 

 heart through the instrumentality of an insect weaver, but when 

 no human shape of charity could approach to cheer it, the de- 

 solation of a solitary prison has more than once found assuage- 

 ment in the welcome companionship even of a spider. Who has 

 not read of M. Pelisson, the hapless inmate of the Bastille, who, 

 taming his little comrade, taught it to come for food at the sound 

 of his flute ; and of that other Frenchman, Quatre Mere 

 Disjonval, who,- during an imprisonment in which spiders were 

 his sole companions, beguiled the weary hours by watching 

 their movements and proceedings as connected with atmospheric 

 changes, the observations thus made forming materials for a 

 work published in 1797, on Arachnology, or the art of interpre- 

 ting weather from the webs and motions of the spider race ; 

 while in times more recent, " una bella ragna" on his dungeon 

 wall, became the pet of Silvio Pellico. 



To return to the virtues of Arachne, we shall close our list 

 of her recommendable qualities by that of cleanliness, wherein 

 she rivals even her direst enemy of the broom, even the 

 worthiest descendant of such assiduous maidens as were wont, 



