34 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



like things. In fact, I have nothing to say in the 

 butterfly's favour, except that it is a joy to the deep- 

 minded and to the simple-hearted, to the sage, and, still 

 better, to the child that it gives an earnest of a better 

 world, not vaguely and generally, as does every " thing 

 of beauty," but with clearest aim and purpose, through 

 one of the most strikingly perfect and beautiful analo- 

 gies that we can find throughout that vast Creation, 

 where 



" All animals are living hieroglyphs." l 



The butterfly, then, in its own progressive stages of 

 caterpillar, chrysalis, and perfect insect, is an emblem 

 of the human soul's progress through earthly life and 

 death, to heavenly life. 



Even the ancient Greeks, with their imperfect lights, 

 recognised this truth, when they gave the same name, 



Psyche (^x 7 ?)* to ^ e sonl > or s P ir ^ f ^ e > an( * to t ^ ie 

 butterfly, and sculptured over the effigy of one dead the 

 figure of a butterfly, floating away, as it were, in his 

 breath ; while poets of all nations have since followed 

 up the simile. 



And this analogy is not only a mere general resem- 

 blance, but holds good through its minute details to a 

 marvellous extent ; to trace which fully would require 

 volumes, while in this place the slightest sketch only 

 can be given. 



First, there is the grovelling caterpillar-state, em- 



1 Bailey's " Festus." 



