290 THKEAD OF SUMAN DESTINY. 



we are too apt to look on as a Parcae's line, the work of, and 

 liable to be cut in two by, a capricious power out of and inde- 

 pendent of ourselves. Let us not be thought for a moment 

 to underrate the power for good of a guiding and overruling 

 Providence; but with humble dependence upon Him for 

 every final issue, let us incline rather to consider this so-named 

 thread of destiny as in most cases, like the spider's, proceeding 

 from ourselves. In the weakness and confusion of our warped 

 judgments and erring wills, it may seem to us a single line, 

 whereas it consists in fact of the double and divergent threads 

 of right and wrong ; and according as we discern and lay hold 

 upon the one or the other, will be our real success or failure 

 in the events of life, whose great wind up is not the business 

 of mortality. 



But not only have hope and courage been infused into the 

 heart through the instrumentality of an insect weaver, but 

 when no human shape of charity could approach to cheer it, 

 the desolation of a solitary prison has more than once found 

 assuagement in the welcome companionship even of a spider. 

 Who has not read of M. Pelisson, the hapless inmate of the 

 Bastille, who, taming his little comrade, taught it to come for 

 food at the sound of his flute ; and of that other Frenchman, 

 Quatre M&reDisjonval, who, during an imprisonment in which 

 spiders were his sole companions, beguiled the weary hours by 

 watching their movements and proceedings as connected with 

 atmospheric changes, the observations thus made forming 



