104 
SUFFERING BRINGS STRENGTH. 
immense internal need; the necessity of recruiting and renewing 
its energies, of restoring the inherited organs, and developing new 
ones. 
The existence of these poor motherless creatures is divided between 
two severe conditions: toil, and growth through disease. 
For their moultings, or sloughings, are, in effect, a disease. 
f 
The painful moment having arrived for the little creature to change 
its clothing, a clothing which clings to its flesh, it is seized with illness, 
abandons its leaf, and creeps languidly to some solitary asylum. If 
you saw it in such a soft, inert, and withered condition, so different 
from its natural state, you would say it was on the point of death. 
And many do, indeed, succumb at this laborious crisis. 
Passive, and suspended to a branch, it waits until nature shall com¬ 
plete its work,—until its epidermis be detached from the second skin 
beneath, recalling it to all the energies of life. 
It is then that you see the garb, which was formerly so brilliant, 
dry up and harden like a thenceforth useless thing, carried hither and 
thither by the wind. 
But before it will yield and separate, the invalid, despite of its 
weakness, must twist in every direction, and writhe, and swell, and 
contract, and employ all the efforts of a being in its strongest moments. 
At length it has conquered; the old sheath is rent; and I see the 
insect free, but bathed in sweat. 
Do not touch it yet, for the slightest pressure will wound. Of this 
it is aware, and lies perfectly motionless. It is pale, and almost swoon¬ 
ing ; it must wait patiently, before beginning to move, till its skin is 
less sensitive and its limbs are much firmer. Soon, fortunately, it will 
be invigorated by its food; it feels a terrible hunger, which restores its 
strength and prepares it for another sloughing. Such is its destiny. 
It is condemned to deliver itself continually in a series of accouche- 
ments, until it finally attains its latest transformation. 
If either the exertion or the pain inspire it with a transient gleam 
of thought, it would say, on each painful occasion: “ Now it is ended ! 
I have finished my task; I will rest in peace; this is my last change.” 
To which Nature would respond: “Not yet! not yet! Thou art not 
