Night-Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 8 1 



that are not of our own day ; that make their own. Any 

 pedestrian wretch can be abroad and awake in the sun-light. 

 Only original genius like Byron's, Shelley's, Goethe's, 

 Lessing's, and everybody else's worth talking about can 

 resent the formalities of the clock and insist upon the right 

 to choose its own hours. Nearly all the best work of the 

 world has been done while the stupid were asleep. 



That the moth is crepuscular ; that in combination with 

 rust it " doth corrupt " ; that light has a fatal fascination for 

 it, are among the ordinary facts of moth-lore that are common 

 property, and constitute the sum of poets' science. 



"And every silver moth fresh from the grave, 

 Which is its cradle ever from below 

 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, 

 To be consumed within the purest glow 

 Of one serene and unapproached star, 

 As if it were a lamp of earthly light." Shelley. 



On the first account, they start with a general prejudice 

 against it ; on the second, they enjoy a specific reason for 

 dislike to it ; on the third, instead of pitying the dreadful 

 fascination surely one of the most horrible " instincts " in 

 nature they reproach the moth, sneer at it, and expatiate 

 in common-place morals on youth and pleasure, beauty and 

 desire, and so on. Here and there is a compassionate touch, 

 a word of tender regret; but as a rule the analogies are 

 neither compassionate nor tender, nor even excellent as 

 imagery. 



Shelley is an exception ; he is one of our poets of the night, 

 and the " silver moths " are therefore under his protection. 

 There is originality in the line " Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like 

 muse has burnt its wings," and beauty in these 



" Such clouds as flit 



Like splendour-winged moths about a taper 

 Round the red west when the sun sets in it." 



For the poets, for poetical reasons, are adverse to darkness 



