See a lovely passage on the
subject of bathing in Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia," where "Philoclea,
blushing, and withal smiling, makeing shamefastnesse pleasant, and
pleasure shamefast, tenderly moved her feet, unwonted to feel the naked
ground, until the touch of the cold water made a pretty kind of
shrugging come over her body; like the twinkling of the fairest among
the fixed stars."--_Ibid_.
INSECTS
Insects now take the place of the feathered tribe, and, being for the
most part hatched in the spring, they are now in full vigour. It is a
very amusing sight in some of our rural rambles, in a bright evening
after a drizzling summer shower, to see the air filled throughout all
its space with sportive organized creatures, the leaf, the branch, the
bark of the tree, every mossy bank, the bare earth, the pool, the ditch,
all teeming with animal life; and the mind that is ever framed for
contemplation, must awaken now in viewing such a profusion and variety
of existence. One of those poor little beings, the fragile _gnat_,
becomes our object of attention, whether we regard its form or peculiar
designation in the insect world; we must admire the first, and
innocently, perhaps, conjecture the latter. We know that Infinite
Wisdom, which formed, declared it "to be very good;" that it has its
destination and settled course of action, admitting of no deviation or
substitution: beyond this, perhaps, we can rarely proceed, or, if we
sometimes advance a few steps more, we are then lost in the mystery with
which the incomprehensible Architect has thought proper to surround it.
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