Des] AND SYMBOLS. Si 



The Despicable the Destructive. 



There is nothing noble in the power to destroy, though 

 soldiers seem to think so. The most despicable creatures are 

 always the most capable as instruments of destruction. The 

 larvae of an insect or fly, no larger than a grain of rice, silently, 

 and in one season, destroy some thousand acres of pine-trees, 

 many of them from two to three feet in diameter, and a hun- 

 dred and fifty feet high ! Whoever passes along the high road 

 from Georgetown to Charleston in South Carolina, about twenty 

 miles from the former place, can have striking and melancholy 

 proofs of the fact. In some places the whole woods, as far as 

 you can see around you, are dead, stripped of the bark, their 

 wintry-looking arms and bare trunks bleaching in the sun, and 

 tumbling in ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful 

 picture of desolation. This work of destruction would take any 

 of the creatures, which we call the noble ones of creation, an 

 immense time to accomplish. They could not at all compete with 

 these despicable insects in this work of destroying the growth of 

 years. An armed banditti in a few days can destroy pictures, 

 statues, monuments, palaces and temples, which are the result 

 of the wisdom and work of a thousand years. One breath of 

 pestilence in the breeze can kill a population more rapidly than 

 all the armies of Europe. There is no difficulty about destruc- 

 tion, and despicable instrumentalities are always its agents. 

 But the power to create, or restore, do you ever find that in 

 association with the despicable or contemptible 1 IN. 



Despicable Conquerors. 



Military brag has thrown a false halo around the word 

 "conqueror." The fact is that even despicable insects may be 

 conquerors. In Africa there are flies which are the actual lords 

 of certain extensive districts, ruling with so absolute a sway 

 that not only man and his cattle are fain to submit to them, but 

 even the most gigantic animals, the elephants and rhinoceroses, 

 cannot stand before them. There is the Zimb of Abyssinia, the 

 very sound of whose dreaded hum sends the herds from their 

 pastures, and makes them run wildly about till they drop with 

 fatigue, fright, and hunger. There is no resource for the 



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