Lea] AND SYMBOLS. 191 



the yielding sides of the pit, and falls into the extended jaws 

 that are waiting for it at the bottom. A smart bite kills the 

 ant, the juices are extracted, and the empty carcase is jerked 

 out of the pit, and the ant-lion settles itself in readiness for 

 another victim. This pit adumbrates English law, the ant-lion 

 the lawyer, and the victim the litigant. The innocent litigant, 

 in want of his rights, looks inquiringly at the attractive pitfalls 

 of the law to see if there is anything therein to his advantage. 

 Very suddenly he finds himself involved in most mysterious 

 processes. With great velocity he next discovers that he has 

 lost his balance and is reduced to a most helpless condition. 

 Soon afterwards, on missing his happy face from society, his 

 friends make the melancholy discovery that, in accordance with 

 the object of the legal pitfalls, he has been pounced upon by the 

 expectant lawyer, sucked dry, and ejected into the abyss of 

 bankruptcy. H. 



Capacity the Title to Leadership. 



Capacity, not adventitious distinction, is the title to leader- 

 ship. The institution of "ruling families," and privileged 

 classes, which obtains amongst men, is despised even by horses, 

 who will have none but those who give evidence of capacity to 

 rule over them. The wild horses in the Ukraine, and among 

 the Cossacks, going in troops of four or five hundred, obey, 

 apparently by compact, the command of one of their own 

 number. He by signs of voice makes them proceed or stop at 

 his pleasure. When the troop is attacked by wolves or other- 

 wise, he gives orders for the necessary arrangements for defence ; 

 if he finds any horses out of their place or lagging behind, he 

 obliges them to take their proper station. These animals, 

 Smellie tells us, of their own natural impulse march in as 

 good order and steadiness as our trained cavalry; they form 

 companies, and pasture in files and brigades, without confusion 

 or separation. The chief holds office for four or five years ; 

 when he grows weaker and less active, another horse, conscious 

 of strength and ambitious of command, springs forth from the 

 troop and attacks the old chief, who probably resists, and if 

 not vanquished keeps his command, but if conquered retires 



