Do not believe that these riches are simply the gifts of genial climates; that these glittering festal garments which they assume to love and die in are only the sheen of the sun, the all-powerful, decorator, which with its rays intensifies the enamel and gems we admire upon their wings. Another sun—a sun which shines for the whole earth, even for the ice-regions of the pole—profits them far more considerably. It exalts in them the inner life, evokes all their powers, and, on the given day, calls forth the supreme flower. Yonder scintillating colours are their visible energies which become speaking and eloquent. It is the pride of a complete life, which, having attained its climax, displays its energy in triumph, wishes to expand and diffuse; it is the tradition of desire, the imperious prayer and urgent appeal to the beloved objects.
In pale and temperate climates, you will meet with those brilliant liveries which one would think belonged to the tropics. Who, under our gloomy and variable sky, has not seen the sparkling Spanish fly? Even in the fatal deserts where summer beams but for an instant, as if in despite of the sun,—in despite of the poor and naked earth,—love supports some beings of a sumptuous splendour, of opulent raiment and rich decoration. Miserable Siberia sees the princes and great lords of the Insect World simultaneously displaying their grandeur. The tyrannical Russian climate cannot prevent enormous beetles, pitiless hunters, fiercer than Ivan the Terrible, from appearing in green, black, violet, or deep blue morocco, shaded with purple sapphires. While some, usurping the ancient copes consecrated to the czars and the porphyrogeniti, stalk to and fro in robes of purple, broidered with Byzantine gold.
In our neighbouring Siberias, I mean our lofty mountains,—under the hailstorms, for instance, of the Pyrenean glaciers,—without being discouraged by their rude blows, fly noble insects, of exquisite appearance, the rosalia in a mantle of pearl-gray satin, spotted with black velvet.
Among the lofty Alps, at the Grindelwald,—the formidable descent where that glacier comes to us, and you may touch its aiguilles, and its keen breath freezes you—I once admired a timid but touching protestation of love. Among some miserable birches, martyr trees, which undergo an eternal chastisement, a poor little plant, elegant and delicate, persists in flowering, with a rose-hued blossom, but a violet rose, not unworthy of the mournful region. The brother of this tragical rose is a very tiny insect which, all feeble as it is, mounts higher than any other species, and is found shivering among the lofty snows of Mont Blanc. There, above you, is only the heaven, and, beneath, the vast shroud of ice. The poetic creature has assumed exactly two tints: the celestial blue of its wings, incredibly delicate, seems lightly kindled with the white powder of the hoar-frost. The storms and avalanches which overthrow the rocks awaken in it no sensations of terror. Under the breath of the terrible giant, in his ice-bristling beard and formidable frown, it, the little one, flies daringly, as if conscious that this king of the everlasting winters would hesitate to destroy the last winged flower of love which, in his realm of death, preserves for him a reflection of heaven.
