“Then I’ll tell you something else,” cried the Lark; “for the best of my news remains behind. You will one day be a Butterfly yourself.”
“Wretched bird!” exclaimed the Caterpillar, “you jest with my inferiority—now you are cruel as well as foolish. Go away! I will ask your advice no more.”
“I told you you would not believe me,” cried the Lark.
“I believe everything that I am told,” persisted the Caterpillar; “that is”—and she hesitated—“everything that is reasonable to believe. But to tell me that butterflies’ eggs are caterpillars, and that caterpillars leave off crawling and get wings, and become butterflies!—Lark! you are too wise to believe such nonsense yourself, for you know it is impossible.”
“I know no such thing,” said the Lark, warmly. “Whether I hover over the cornfields of earth, or go up into the depths of the sky, I see so many wonderful things, I know no reason why there should not be more. Oh, Caterpillar! it is because you crawl, because you never get beyond your cabbage-leaf, that you call any thing impossible.”
“Nonsense!” shouted the Caterpillar, “I know what’s possible, and what’s not possible, according to my experience and capacity, as well as you do. Look at my long green body and these endless legs, and then talk to me about having wings and a painted feathery coat.”
“You would-be-wise Caterpillar!” cried the indignant Lark. “Do you not hear how my song swells with rejoicing as I soar upwards to the mysterious wonder-world above? Oh, Caterpillar; what comes to you from thence, receive, as I do, upon trust.”
“That is what you call—”
“Faith,” interrupted the Lark.
“How am I to learn Faith?” asked the Caterpillar.