United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A hermit of the Thebaïd was no more diligent in his cell than I in my village home." Was there not indeed a sufficiency of captivating matters all about him, and beneath his very feet? In his deep, sunny garden a thousand insects fly, creep, crawl, and hum, and each relates its history to him. A golden gardener-beetle trots along the path.
As far back as he can remember, while still quite a child, "a little monkey of six, still dressed in a little baize frock," or just "wearing his first braces," he sees himself "in ecstasy before the splendours of the wing-cases of a gardener-beetle, or the wings of a butterfly." At nightfall, among the bushes, he learned to recognize the chirp of the grasshopper.
This is why the love of the males is almost equivalent to their suicide; the Gardener-beetle, attacked by the female, attempts to flee, but does not defend himself; "it is as though an invincible repugnance prevents him from repulsing or from eating the eater."
Word Of The Day