When I was young I used to read in good books that it was God
who taught the bird to make her nest, and if so He probably taught
each species the other domestic arrangements best suited to it. Or
did the nest-building information come from God, and was there an
evil one among the birds also who taught them at any rate to steer
clear of priggishness?
Think of the spider again--an ugly creature, but I suppose God
likes it. What a mean and odious lie is that web which naturalists
extol as such a marvel of ingenuity!
Once on a summer afternoon in a far country I met one of those
orchids who make it their business to imitate a fly with their
petals. This lie they dispose so cunningly that real flies,
thinking the honey is being already plundered, pass them without
molesting them. Watching intently and keeping very still,
methought I heard this orchid speaking to the offspring which she
felt within her, though I saw them not. "My children," she
exclaimed, "I must soon leave you; think upon the fly, my loved
ones, for this is truth; cling to this great thought in your
passage through life, for it is the one thing needful; once lose
sight of it and you are lost!" Over and over again she sang this
burden in a small still voice, and so I left her. Then straightway
I came upon some butterflies whose profession it was to pretend to
believe in all manner of vital truths which in their inner practice
they rejected; thus, asserting themselves to be certain other and
hateful butterflies which no bird will eat by reason of their
abominable smell, these cunning ones conceal their own sweetness,
and live long in the land and see good days.
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