The Life of the Spider 



them with mortar; and the law will defend 

 your wall. Build up in writing an edifice of 

 your thoughts ; and it will be open to any one, 

 without serious impediment, to abstract stones 

 from it, even to take the whole, if it suit him. 

 A rabbit-hutch is property; the work of the 

 mind is not. If the animal has eccentric views 

 as regards the possessions of others, we have 

 ours as well. 



'Might always has the best of the argu- 

 ment,' said La Fontaine, to the great scandal 

 of the peace-lovers. The exigencies of verse, 

 rhyme and rhythm, carried the worthy fabulist 

 further than he intended : he meant to say 

 that, in a fight between mastiffs and in other 

 brute conflicts, the stronger is left master of 

 the bone. He well knew that, as things go, 

 success is no certificate of excellence. Others 

 came, the notorious evil-doers of humanity, 

 who made a law of the savage maxim that 

 might is right. 



We are the larvae with the changing skins, 

 the ugly caterpillars of a society that is slowly, 

 very slowly, wending its way to the triumph 

 of right over might. When will this sublime 

 metamorphosis be accomplished? To free 

 ourselves from those wild-beast brutalities, 

 :u8 



