1 62 The Poets and Nature. 



At other times, too, when flitting so " idly " from flower 

 to flower, it was just as busy as the bee which shared the 

 flowers with it, for it was on the same business, of eating 

 honey. So that as a matter of fact even the winged butter- 

 fly has its work to do, and does it conscientiously and 

 thoroughly. The winged ant does no more; indeed, it 

 does much less, for it has not even to feed itself, nor has 

 it to take any maternal care of its young whatever. All this 

 is done for it. Its only duty is to get married, and as soon 

 as this is done, it is taken possession of by the unwinged 

 workers, and spared all further exertion thenceforward from 

 that moment. 



Nor if we compare the unwinged butterfly, the caterpillar, 

 with the wingless ant, is the balance of work in favour of 

 either. Each gets through all that it has to do with exemplary 

 industry and despatch. 



Amongst ourselves, too, there are the butterflies and the 

 ants the men who get through quantities of work and yet 

 somehow always seem to have leisure for enjoyment, and 

 the men who moil and toil all the day long, grinding out 

 work and complaining that the day is too short for all that 

 they have to do. Yet the actual output of the former is 

 usually as large, and as a rule more brilliant, than that of 

 the latter. Moreover, he goes about his work and in the 

 intervals of his work about his pleasures like a creature 

 that is capable of happiness, a pleasure to look at, under- 

 standing the gladness of sunshine and the beauty of 

 flowers 



The ants among us wonder at them, and in their clumsy 

 antennal language exchange astonishment over their butterfly 

 fellow-workers being able to get through so much and yet 

 seem so unoccupied. They themselves can hardly find time 

 to take their meals, or make themselves tidy, and hurry 

 about in the heat and dust dragging loads behind them, 

 shabby and careworn, while the butterflies carefully dressed 



