War] AND SYMBOLS. 393 



worm, however, like the unsuccessful man's riches, is gone ! 

 The successful polype has appropriated the mere worm, but 

 cannot the rival. Our greedy enemies may extinguish us for a 

 time and appropriate our wealth, but our manhood will survive. 



N. D. 



The Type of Vulgarity. 



Of all the Babel confusion of bird-tongues, there are few 

 more displeasing than the sparrow's. All the boorish vulgarity 

 of his nature is expressed in that tone. It is true, to the 

 sparrow himself it sounds like music. He never tires of 

 repeating again and again his shrill chirrup, although no one 

 cries Da capo; and, to the despair of all lovers of harmony, 

 makes himself heard loudest just when one of his race, endued 

 with the gift of song, is about to rejoice the listener. But so it 

 is : the only true nobility, that of genius, is what the plebeian 

 always hates most. Sparrow, and nothing but sparrow, such 

 is the levelling system of these sans culottes. ST. 



The Proprieties of War. 



Tne mischief which the European termites silently accomplish 

 is wonderful. Some records kept in a box at La Rochelle, which 

 was invaded by these terrible destroyers, were almost totally 

 destroyed, and that without the slightest external trace of any 

 damage. The termites had reached the boxes in which these 

 documents were preserved by mining the wainscoting ; they 

 had then leisurely devoured the administration records, carefully 

 respecting the upper sheets and the margin of each leaf, so that 

 a box which was only a mass of rubbish seemed to contain a 

 pile of papers in perfect order. This fastidious decorum of 

 theirs, in leaving the outward appearance of things in good 

 order, resembles that of our soldiers after one of our wars of 

 foreign aggression. They invade a locality by some side pre- 

 tence, commit the most awful destruction in all directions, and 

 yet leave our treaties, compacts, and even protocols, which 

 cover all these transactions, in the most perfect order. The 

 form of these things remains intact, whilst the substance of 

 them has been rendered mere rubbish. Yet such a procedure 



