Perhaps, however, even Irving and Goethe, despite their theories, would have shrunk from the extraordinary pet which Sir Joseph Banks kept in his library, much to the horror of unsuspecting guests. It was, in fact, a boa-constrictor!
People of contemplative habits, who enjoy a quiet life among their books, and hate mortally the intrusion of broom or duster, are very apt to be interested in spiders. These insects have the same meditative disposition, and an equal aversion to housemaids. The wise Spinoza spent his odd moments in training them to recognize signals, and to have little combats with each other. Magliabecchi, the old Florentine librarian, had a similar fancy. From morning till night, from night till morning, year in, year out, he might be found reclining in a sort of wooden cradle, immovably fixed among piles of books and manuscripts; and which, in course of time, was further anchored to the surrounding objects by strands of cobweb. Here he lived, reading volume after volume with insatiable zeal, eating quantities of hard-boiled eggs, and cautioning whoever called upon him not to trouble his dear spiders!
Such intimacy would never have suited Fourier, who was horribly frightened one morning as he lay in bed, by seeing a small spider on the ceiling above him. Up he sprang; but instead of dressing, or dislodging the intruder with a broom, he ran from room to room, screaming for help. “Quick! hurry!” cried the poor reformer; “do somebody take it away quick!”
The most famous, and undoubtedly the best-known patrons of spiders, are Mahomet and Robert Bruce. Of the former it is told that he once fled, hotly pursued by foes, and concealed himself in a cave. Straightway, an obliging spider threw his web across the entrance; so that when the enemy came up, seeing it, they said, “No one has been here—for behold the unbroken web!” and carried the search elsewhere. Thus the Prophet escaped, and good Mahometans have honored the race of Webspinner since that day.
The story of Bruce is equally pleasant. The weary king was about to give up the struggle for his rights, when encouraged by the efforts of a patient little spider, to “try again,” he did so—this time saving both life and kingdom.
In the Cricket on the Hearth, Charles Dickens spread the fame of that friendly little creature far and near. But long before his day, the eccentric Lord Byron (uncle to the poet) had diverted his bitter old age by the study of its ways. Human society, except that of a few servants, he would none of; but for hours together would lie upon the ground, playing with the crickets he had tamed, making them perform tricks, and—if they displeased him—whipping them with little wisps of hay.
From so moody and misanthropic an old gentleman, it is a pleasure to turn to a lady now living—an artist—who cultivates crickets on social principles, and reaps duly a large social reward.
The following account of her pets has been sent by a friend.
“The crickets of Miss C——’s studio days were considered such a curiosity that she had letters from California and all over the country, asking about them and the care of them. Her end and aim was to raise crickets from the eggs, laid in glass globes in the studio, that would sing in the winter, when all the summer crickets were frozen up in the fields, beneath the snow; crickets to sing to her all through the long winter nights, when the wind would be howling down the chimney, and the sleet beating against the windows.
“Years and years gave no success, beyond a few, that were sure to die before the end of January; but at last, just the winter before she married, there was one sweet singer which made music for her all winter long, and which she trained to sing in the ruffle of her neck. Better yet, it liked to sit and sing in the ruffle at her left wrist, while the hand kept very quiet, holding the mahl-stick at the easel. Meanwhile, Toodles, the immense maltese trained cat, would sing an accompaniment from the rug before the open grate fire.”