THE CLOTHES-MOTH. 241 



find upon fur the means of satisfying both these imperative 

 wants, up to the moment at which they go and conceal them- 

 selves in some corner of an apartment, preparatory to becom- 

 ing butterflies. 



I could easily believe that these moths were unknown to 

 the ancients, if I had any faith in the accounts of people who 

 said that they had seen the clothes of Servius Tullius five 

 hundred years after his death. 



But Pliny tells us of a means of preserving things from the 

 moth, which proves that the furniture and clothes of these 

 great men, who have been the cause of our making so many 

 "themes," "verses," and "reflections," in our childhood, 

 were no more exempt from it than my old arm-chair. He 

 asserts very seriously that clothes placed for a few minutes 

 upon a coffin, will never be attacked by moths. 



Some more modern savants have not thought proper to 

 have any faith in this receipt of Pliny's, but they advise 

 people to wrap up the stufis they wish to preserve in the skin 

 of a lion, thinking, doubtless, that these little insects had 

 taken in earnest the royalty which man has conceded to the 

 lion, and that they would respect this monarch, although 

 conquered, skinned, and become a carpet or rug. 



This is an experiment that will succeed no better with lions 

 than with other monarchs. Moths eat stufis enclosed in a 

 lion's skin with the same assurance and impunity as the will 

 of Louis XIV. was set at nought. 



It seems true I am, like you* a traveller; if I remained all 

 this time in my old arm-chair, it was only because the sky looked 

 grey and threatening; but a bright ray breaks through the 

 clouds, and I will pursue my walk in my garden, and visit that 

 little tuft of flax near which I yesterday broke off my account. 



A man was once pointed out to me whom credulity had 

 rendered absolutely mad. At first, a person had innocently 

 said to him, pointing to a peasant with some flax in his hand, 

 " There is a man sowing shirts." He smiled. It was then 

 explained to him seriously and truly, that from this seed 

 would grow a plant, which, by means of preparations, would 

 become excellent cloth, and that from this cloth shirts would 

 be made. This idea did not find entrance into his brain 

 without causing a little tumult there, and the people around 



B 



