The Life of the Weevil 
shoulder. Thus was the idol decked by the 
hands of the pious Syrian. 
To tell the truth, it is not esthetic. It is 
sumptuous, if you will, and preferable, after 
all, to the donkey’s-ears which our modern 
beauties wear perched upon their heads. 
What a singular freak is fashion, so fertile 
in the means of uglification! Commerce 
knows nothing of loveliness, says this divinity 
of the traders; it prefers profit, embellished 
with luxury. So speaks the drachma. 
On the reverse, a lion clawing the ground 
and roaring wide-mouthed. Not of to-day 
alone is the savagery that symbolizes power 
in the shape of some formidable brute, as 
though evil were the supreme expression of 
strength. The eagle, the lion and other 
marauders often figure on the reverse of 
coins. But reality is not sufficient; the ima- 
gination invents monstrosities: the centaur, 
the dragon, the griffin, the unicorn, the 
double-headed eagle. 
Are the inventors of these emblems so 
greatly superior to the Redskin who cele- 
brates the prowess of his scalping-knife with 
which Phocea, in Asia Minor, was the mother city.— 
Translator’s Note. 
4 
