WORK BEFORE SLEEP. 
105 
yet engendered. What art thou ? Nothing but a larva, a mask which 
is about to fall.” 
What! A mask ! and yet it wills and toils, strives and suffers, and 
sometimes seems more advanced than will be the being produced from 
it! So much industry and skill imprisoned in a skin which will imme¬ 
diately dry up and be blown away by the breeze ! 
However this may be, it is seized one morning by an undefinable 
kind of irritability and disquiet,—by a mysterious impulse which 
excites it to undertake a new task. You would say that within itself 
another self exists, moving, and stirring, and following up a distinct 
purpose, and yearning to become—what ? does it know ? This I can¬ 
not assert; but after awhile you may see it acting, and acting sagaci¬ 
ously, as if inspired by a perfect knowledge. Its presentiment of the 
slumber which will shortly seize upon it, paralyze its forces, and sur¬ 
render it helplessly to all its enemies, incites it to the sudden display 
of a novel activity. “Let us work well! Let us work quickly! For 
soon I shall sleep soundly.” 
