CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Christ, the divine teacher, has taught us to go to nature for moral and spiritual lessons. "Consider the lilies of the field," He says to those who are anxious about, and careworn with the things of this life: and that old triangle of a problem with its hard points: "What shall we eat? what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" does press heavily on many even of those who read our Girl's Own Paper. The fall of the sparrow, too, He tells us, is noted by His Father and ours. He bids those who are neglectful of the talents given to them, learn a lesson of the barren fig-tree. Again the rapid and marvellous development of the mustard-tree, in the mouth of the great teacher, becomes an image of the faith that He bids us have. And even when speaking of the yearning love He had for souls, He did not disdain to use the simile: "As a hen gathereth her young." And so, if the eyes are quick to note all that surrounds us, all the wonderful life, "the infinitely small" as well as "the infinitely great," and the heart makes room for love, it will be possible to learn, from the first year of our lives, until the day of our death here, lessons from nature which no man or woman has ever yet exhausted, nor ever will.
One of my earliest memories is of an old-world garden where our mother, who was an ardent lover of the beautiful, would direct the attention of my sisters and myself to the pencilling on the petal of this and that flower. God's finger painted the velvety face of the pansy, she told us. And how often I pondered over this expression and wondered if that finger did its work in the garden when we were asleep.
Our dear mother gave us a love for nature which has been our resource and consolation in many a sorrow, and which has filled the void of what would otherwise have been weary, monotonous hours.
Ruskin said, "Despise the earth or slander it, fix your eyes on its gloom and forget its loveliness, and we do not thank you for your languid or despairing perception of brightness in Heaven. But rise up actively on the earth, learn what there is in it, and when, after that, you say 'Heaven is bright,' it will be a precious truth." Lord Bacon spoke fitly of the "respondences of nature," and he with many other great minds has dwelt on the marvellous analogies of nature. These analogies are indeed evidences of the unity of creation. And there are prefigurations which we may note in the animal kingdom, in the various habits of the creatures, their works, economies and instincts. Human art is prefigured in the work of the bee, the wasp, and the beaver. Democritus averred that men learned weaving from spiders and architecture from birds. Virgil said that the bees had in them a portion of the divine mind.
The Psalmist likened a good man to a tree planted by a river; Wordsworth writes constantly in a strain which bears witness to his belief that between man and the flowers of the field there is the closest affinity; in quaint George Herbert's poems we note also the same teaching. Look them up, if you do not remember them, especially that dear one called "The Flower."
How many great men have been influenced in their careers, careers which have been great factors in the world's growth, by the sight of what to many an unobservant or unthinking mind would seem too insignificant an object for notice.
There was the great traveller and explorer, Mungo Park, who was employed by the so-called African association to explore the interior regions of Africa. Once, weary, disappointed, and baffled, he was on the point of giving way to despair, when he suddenly came on a little plant the sight of which, and the thoughts which its beauty suggested, revived his courage and probably saved his life.
Most of you will remember also that beautiful story of Picciola, the prison flower, the seed of which had fallen on the paved yard of a prison where a noble Italian was confined. When he was in the lowest state of despondency, and in danger perhaps of madness, the tiny plant awakened interest, and daily delighted the poor prisoner as its beauties unfolded, opening a little world of interest to the starved heart and mind. When at last he was set at liberty he caused his wall-flower to be transplanted and placed it in a border, in a place of honour in his castle grounds. It had been made the instrument of his salvation.
Some persons talk of things being insignificant or too small to notice. Perhaps it will surprise some of our readers to hear that a common house-fly is said to occupy the middle place in creation as regards the size of known creatures. Most people can see big things, but the gift of seeing tiny objects belongs rather to the few, and yet it may be cultivated, and great enjoyment may be found in observing things which seem to common minds to be unworthy of note—the simple, homely, and smaller life that surrounds us. Mr. Leo Grindon, a great student of life and a noted botanist, says very truly—
"To learn how to see and delight in little things, as well as in large, is, in fact, to make no slight progress both in true intelligence and in aptitude for genuine pleasure. Many laugh at the idea of being pleased with little things, which, they say, 'please little minds.' They should remember that the great mass of the population of our planet consists of the merest pigmies, diminutive birds and fishes, tiny insects, animalcules, only visible through a microscope, so that to turn away from little things is to be indifferent to almost everything the world contains. Besides, with Uranus eighty times greater than the whole earth, Neptune a hundred and fifty times greater, Saturn more than seven hundred times, and Jupiter more than fourteen hundred, it is rather inconsistent to talk about littleness in the objects of a world itself (comparatively) so puny."
"Our spring is in our lightsome girlish days."
Spring is the season of growth. Let us try to promote a healthy mental growth by studying together in the wonderful book of nature and appropriating some of those helpful lessons which she has to teach us.
The Provident Ant.
The wise man, in the Book of Proverbs, speaks of the ant as one of "four things which are little upon the earth," and yet are "exceeding wise." He says that the ants are "a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." That is, when all in nature is at its richest, when food abounds, they use forethought and gather in enough to sustain themselves before the winter draws near, and the usual food supplies have failed.
The Book of Job, that Eastern drama which is so wonderful in its lessons suited to human experiences in all time, is marvellously comprehensive in its illustrations drawn from the natural world. We are taken there into the regions of ice and snow, and again we pass through the rich verdure of the tropics. We try to sound the frozen deeps, and anon survey the hot desert plains; we wander where the lion seeks his prey, and through dense forests where behemoth, or the elephant, feeds. The coral and the pearls are there, so are the gold ore, the iron, and the brass. The Author shows us the ostrich "that scorneth the horse and its rider, the hawk that stretched her wings towards the south like our peregrine, the wander falke"—the eagle that makes her nest on high yet "is with the slain on the earth beneath." And this great observer says, "Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls and they shall tell thee, or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee."
THE WOOD ANT (Formica rufa).
(a) Male; (b) female; (c) worker.
The lessons to be learned from the ant are, of course, diligence and a careful or prudent forethought for the future. Solomon says that the ant "has no guide, overseer, or ruler," yet she provides, having gathered in during the summer and the harvest time. How many of us there are who seem to need tutors and governors to urge us on through the duties of life, not only in childhood, but far on into man and womanhood. Compulsory pressure from without alone rouses some of us to action. Man thinks himself the lord of creation, and is yet far outdone by a weak insect, not only in energy and persistent work, but often positively in intelligence.
Perhaps you have, many of you, read of the so-called warrior ants, the Termites bellicosi of the more tropical regions. They do not belong to the same order of insects as our own ants, and we are happily not subjected to the havoc which their building and devouring works. Two species of termites have, however, got established in France, notably in Rochefort, La Rochelle, and Aix, and there they have undermined and utterly ruined a number of houses. In one town they gnawed away the supports of a dining-room before their ravages were detected, and the floor gave way during a party, the host and his guests suddenly falling through together.
Artillery charged with grapeshot has been employed to destroy great fortresses that these ants have made in a tropical country. In South Africa the termites work enormous havoc. They live in a social republic of their own. Some of them, the males, have wings; the workmen, the soldiers, and the queens however have none. The workmen construct their buildings, the soldiers defend the colony and keep order, and the females, or queens, are worshipped by all the others. These become in point of fact mere egg-laying machines, which have at last to remain tied to one spot.
Twenty feet high their nesting-homes often are, and pyramidal in shape. Wild cattle can climb upon them with impunity without crushing them, the walls are so solid. A dozen men can find shelter in some of their chambers, and native hunters do often lie in wait inside them when out after wild animals. They construct galleries also which are as wide as the bore of a large cannon, and which run three and four feet underground. The nests are said to be five hundred times as high as the ant's body, and it has been estimated that if we built our houses as high, proportionately, they would be four or five times as high as the pyramids of Egypt, on which we look with such wonder and awe.
In speaking of the havoc some ants make, let us also remember some good service rendered. In the West Indies there is a red cockroach which is four times as large as the English one. It smells horridly, and scents everything that it touches, is far more destructive than the ant, and quite omnivorous. Now, although one cockroach in bulk outweighs two hundred ants, the latter little creatures kill and devour innumerable cockroaches. Whenever an ant comes upon a cockroach that is at rest, eating, or in its hole, suddenly myriads appear, swarm round it, as if by magic, surround it completely, and then, with one consent, rush all over it, and as it is dragged away, you see only a mass of ants moving along. All the time they carry they are busily devouring it, until only its shell is left.
We read also that in forests in Switzerland and Sweden the ants form lofty hillocks which serve as a compass to travellers who have lost their way by night or in a fog. The nests being always made from east to west, their peak is at the east end, which is steep, the ridge sloping, however, gently down to the nest. So the wanderer can tell from these ant-hills in which direction he ought to go.
Tamerlane, the great Tartar prince, learned a helpful lesson from an ant once, when he had taken refuge from the pursuing enemy in a ruined building. Having to stay there for hours, at the end of his resources, ready to give way to despair, his attention was attracted by an ant which was carrying something larger than itself up a high wall. Noticing that it often let its burden drop, he began to count the number of times that it began the ascent again, and he found that sixty-nine times it failed, its burden falling to the ground. The seventieth time was a success. "This sight," he said, "gave me courage at the moment, and I have never forgotten the lesson it taught me."
Our own ants afford a marvellous study for those who can and will give a little time to—as Solomon says—the considering of their ways. Ants are said to stand higher than any other insects in intelligence—so-called instinct. And insects in general have more of this faculty developed in them than have any other creatures. They are watchful, unwearying nurses; they take the eggs out on fine warm days so as to warm and strengthen the coming ants, and they will wait, to be cut in bits, rather than forsake their charge. When the eggs are hatched, the nurses clean and brush their young, and even shampoo the thin skin which cover their limbs, so that they can go free. Each grown ant knows its own business and can, when necessary, fight its own battles, and yet there is always a community; they have all things in common and work for the general good. They are enduring, persevering, faithful in friendships, and most industrious. One writer has said, in describing an ant-hill, that whilst there was a twittering of birds, and a buzz and hum of insect life around, the ants were all silent, only "the sort of low hiss which arose from the collected workers, resembled the noise of a London street more than any form of speech."
Their power of self-sacrifice is a marvellous fact. A man once saw a line of ants, on travel, trying to pass a little rapid stream. They hooked themselves on to each other so as to form a chain which was carried in a slanting direction by the current to the opposite shore. Many of this chain were drowned, dropping off in the forming process; those in front were often baffled and overwhelmed in the rushing current. At last the bridge was completed and the main body of the army of ants marched across the stream in safety upon the massed bodies of their self-sacrificing companions.
Milton has written of "the parsimonious emmet, provident of the future...." "In small room, large heart enclosed." A writer has stated that a son of Mr. Darwin dissected the head and brain of an ant, which latter the great scientist declared to be "one of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the world," more marvellous even than the brain of man. Speaking of the brain of ants, Sir John Lubbock says, "The head bears the principal organs of sense, and contains the brain, as the anterior portion of the nervous system may fairly be called."
Forethought is at the root of all thrift, and thrift underlies all civilisation as well as personal well-being. We seem at times, some of us, rather to despise a saving disposition, as if this necessarily implied meanness in its subject. Yet the greatest benefactors of our race have been nearly all great savers at some period of their lives. And there is little true generosity in the soul of the woman who spends all she gets, even if her means go largely to others, if, through failing to lay by something for a rainy day, during the winter of life she is thrown on the charity of her fellows for her support. As someone says, nothing should be left at loose ends. It is only the few who become rich through large undertakings, the majority of mankind prosper by means of carefulness and the practice of the details of thrift. "Thrift is the best means of thriving."
Let us end this little study by reminding ourselves of that thoughtful dictum of Ruskin's, "Economy, whether public or private, means the wise management of labour ... first applying your labour rationally; secondly, preserving its produce carefully; lastly, distributing its produce seasonably."
(To be continued.)
[ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.]
By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of "A Girl in Springtime," "Sisters Three," etc.