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“What sort of a weaver is your neighbour,
the Silk-Worm?” said a Spider to a
Caterpillar. “She is the slowest, dullest
creature imaginable,” replied the Caterpillar;
“I can weave a web sixty times as quick as
she can. But then she has got her name up
in the world, while I am constantly the victim
of envy and hatred. My productions
are destroyed, sometimes rudely and boldly,
sometimes with insidious cunning; but her
labours are praised all the world over—mankind
wreath them with flowers, embroider
them with gold, and load them with jewels.”
“I sympathize with you deeply,” said the
Spider; for I too am the victim of envy and
injustice. Look at my web extended across
the window-pane? Did the Silk-Worm ever
do anything to equal its delicate transparency?
Yet in all probability to-morrow's sun

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will see it swept away by the unfeeling
housemaid. Alas, my sister! genius and
merit are always pursued by envy.”

“Foolish creatures,” exclaimed a gentleman,
who overheard their complaints. “You,
Mrs. Caterpillar, who boast of your rapid
performances, let me ask you, what is their
value? Do they not contain the eggs that
will hereafter develope themselves, and destroy
blossom and fruit?—even as the hasty
and selfish writer winds into his pages principles
wherewithal to poison the young heart's
purity and peace?

“As for you, Mrs. Spider, you are hardly
worthy of a rebuke. Your transparent web
is broken by a dew-drop, as some pretty poetry
is marred by the weight of a single idea.
Like other framers of flimsy snares, you will
catch a few silly little flies, and soon be
swept away—the ephemera of an hour. But
rail not at productions, which ye cannot understand!
How can such as you estimate
the labours of the Silk-Worm? Like genius
expiring in the intensity of its own fires, she
clothes the world in the beauty she dies in
creating.