bals
were resounding on every side; careless of the real, he followed
tradition. He himself echoed a more ancient narrative; he repeated some
legend that had reached him from India, the venerable mother of
civilisations. We do not know precisely what story the reed-pen of the
Hindoo may have confided to writing, in order to show the perils of a
life without foresight; but it is probable that the little animal drama
was nearer the truth than the conversation between the Cigale and the
Ant. India, the friend of animals, was incapable of such a mistake.
Everything seems to suggest that the principal personage of the original
fable was not the Cigale of the Midi, but some other creature, an insect
if you will, whose manners corresponded to the adopted text.

Imported into Greece, after long centuries during which, on the banks of
the Indus, it made the wise reflect and the children laugh, the ancient
anecdote, perhaps as old as the first piece of advice that a father of a
family ever gave in respect of economy, transmitted more or less
faithfully from one memory to another, must have suffered alteration in
its details, as is the fate of all such legends, which the passage of
time adapts to the circumstance of time and place.

The Greek, not finding in his country the insect of which the Hindoo
spoke, introduced the Cigale, as in Paris, the modern Athens, the Cigale
has been replaced by the Grasshopper. The mistake was made; henceforth
indelible. Entrusted as it is to the memory of childhood, error will
prevail against the truth that lies before our eyes.

Let us seek to rehabilitate the songstress so calumniated by the fable.
She is, I grant you, an importunate neighbour. Every summer she takes up
her station in hundreds before my door, attracted thither by the verdure
of two great plane-trees; and there, from sunrise to sunset, she hammers
on my brain with her strident symphony. With this deafening concert
thought is impossible; the mind is in a whirl, is seized with vertigo,
unable to concentrate itself. If I have not profited by the early
morning hours the day is lost.

Ah! Creature possessed, the plague of my dwelling, which I hoped would
be so peaceful!--the Athenians, they say, used to hang you up in a
little cage, the better to enjoy your song. One were well enough, during
the drowsiness of digestion; but hundreds, roaring all at once,
assaulting the hearing until thought recoils--this indeed is torture!
You put