136 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



Both are beautiful, both mysterious the winged and 

 the wingless; but one light differs from another in 

 glory even as the stars. The fire-fly is more splendid, 

 more surprising, in its flashes. It flashes and is dark, 

 and we watch, staring at the black darkness, for the 

 succeeding flash. It is like watching for rockets to 

 explode in the dark sky: there is an element of 

 impatience which interferes with the pleasure. To 

 admire and have a perfect satisfaction, the insects must 

 be in numbers, in multitudes, sparkling everywhere in 

 the darkness, so that no regard is paid to any indivi- 

 dual light, but they are seen as we see snowflakes. 



I fancy that Dante, in describing the appearance of 

 glorified souls in heaven, unless he took it all from 

 Ezekiel, had the fire-fly in his mind 



From the bosom 



Of that effulgence quivers a sharp flash 

 Sudden and frequent in the guise of lightning. 



Of all who have attempted to describe and compare 

 the two insects fire-fly and glow-worm Thomas Lovell 

 Beddoes is the best. Beddoes himself, in those sudden 

 brilliant letters to his friend Kelsall, of Fareham, in 

 this county, was a sort of human fire-fly. In a letter to 

 Proctor, from Milan, 1824, he wrote: "And what else 

 have I seen ? A beautiful and far-famed insect do 

 not mistake, I mean neither the Emperor, nor the 

 King of Sardinia, but a much finer specimen the 

 fire-fly. Their bright light is evanescent, and alternates 

 with the darkness, as if the swift whirling of the earth 



