EPHEMERA OF ART AND NATURE. 151 



Look at that new street, in suburban London, called Atlas 

 Place. Wanting strength to support their own weight, two 

 of the end houses fell beneath the gales of last March. But 

 what of this? They stood their intended day, for they 

 were only built to sell, and were turned into money; they 

 served to " raise the wind " before the wind razed them. In the 

 centre of the row still stands Atlas House, a manufactory of 

 boarding-school misses, from whence they are to be turned out, 

 exquisitely polished. The polish, it is true, will lie but on the 

 surface, soon to be rubbed off, instead of heightened, by the 

 wear and tear of life. And who can expect it otherwise, 

 knowing that the neat little articles "finished" at all such 

 establishments are but plated goods, got up only to last their 

 day, to pass with the unwary for sterling metal, and fetch above 

 their value at the matrimonial mart ? 



In the house adjoining, at a front window But stay ! 



what have we here, just fallen upon the ledge of our own 

 cottage casement? An Ephemeral or May-fly, one, doubtless, 

 of the early swarm which we noticed at nine o'clock this 

 morning rising and falling near the brook at the bottom of 

 the garden. They were then just risen from the water, new- 

 born into air, and into their perfect stage of being. Now it 

 is scarce noon, yet of this, and of the greater number of its 

 active fellows, the life is over. Literally, as proverbially, this 

 is the creature of a day ; a day ! say rather of a few brief 

 hours ; but only let us compare it with the works of art or 

 artifice intended by us for a day's duration. 



Here all is finish and perfection; for Nature metes not the 

 quality of her workmanship by amount of time. Even amongst 

 the beautiful and short-lived flowers some of the most beautiful 

 of all are of all the briefest ; witness that flower of an hour 

 the Malva horaria, the Favonia, the Gum-cistus, and the 

 Night-blowing Cereus. 



But now to examine more minutely our cloud-dropt insect 

 specimen, 



