Use] AND SYMBOLS. 379 



invisible they still remain immovable, the noise of the gun only 

 stupefying them, so that they refuse to leave, although their 

 companions are dropping down dead around them. They are 

 taken in by appearances ; and so long as the man is disguised 

 they accept him as the creature which he pretends to be, even 

 though his actions clearly indicate that he is something else. 

 Shy, beautiful, and harmless, the unfortunate bird meets destruc- 

 tion simply for want of wariness. Many a lovely human being 

 with the like qualities has met her doom for want of that same 

 trait. RE. 



Use is Second Nature. 



In speaking of the cause of "the indescribable, deep, and 

 quite peculiar impression which the first earthquake which we 

 experience makes upon us," Humboldt says : "The impression 

 here is not, I believe, the consequence of any recollection of 

 destructive catastrophes presented to our imagination by narra- 

 tives of historical events ; what seizes upon us so wonderfully 

 is the disabuse of that innate faith in the fixity of the solid and 

 surest foundations of the earth. From early childhood we are 

 habituated to the contrast between the mobile element water 

 and the immobility of the soil on which we stand. All the 

 evidences of our senses have confirmed this belief. But when 

 suddenly the ground begins to rock beneath us, the feeling of 

 an unknown, mysterious power in Nature coming into action 

 and shaking the solid globe arises in the mind. The illusion of 

 the whole of our earlier life is annihilated in an instant. We 

 are undeceived as to the repose of Nature ; we feel ourselves 

 transported to the realm, and made subject to the empire of 

 destructive unknown powers. Every sound the slightest 

 rustle in the air sets attention on the stretch. We no longer 

 trust the earth upon which we stand. The unusual in the 

 phenomenon throws the same anxious unrest and alarm over 

 the lower animals. Swine and dogs are particularly affected 

 by it; and the very crocodiles of the Orinoco, otherwise a 

 dumb as our little lizards, leave the shaken bed of the stream 

 and run bellowing into the woods. To men the earthquake 

 presents itself as an all-pervading, unlimited something. We 

 can remove from an active crater ; from the stream of lava which 



