IN AN OLD GARDEN 211 



although not so old as Nature's unconscious aestheti- 

 dsm which, in the organic world, is first expressed 

 in beauty of form. It is long since the great May 

 flies, large as swifts, had their aerial cloudy dances 

 over the vast everglades and ancient forests of 

 ferns ; and when, on some dark night, a brilliant 

 Will-o'-the-wisp rose and floated above the feathery 

 foliage, drawn in myriads to its light, they revolved 

 about it in an immense mystical wheel, misty-white, 

 glistening, and touched with prismatic colour. 

 Floating fire and wheel were visible only to the stars, 

 and the wakeful eyes of giant scaly monsters lying 

 quiescent in the black waters below ; but they were 

 very beautiful nevertheless. The modest earwig was 

 old on the earth even then ; he dates back to the 

 time, immeasurably remote, when scorpions pos- 

 sessed the earth, and taught him to frighten his 

 enemies with a stingless tail — ^that curious antique 

 little tail which has not yet forgot its cunning. 



Greater than all these inhabitants of the Garden, 

 ancient or modern, by reason of their numbers — 

 which is the sign of predominancerr-are the small 

 wingless people that have colonies on every green 

 stem and under every green leaf. 



These are the true generators of that heavenly 

 sweat, or saliva of the stars, concerning which Pliny 

 the Younger wrote so learnedly. And they are many 

 tribes — green, purple, brown, isabelline ; i but all 



