"What a pretty plump dove for a dinner! Providence hath ordained I should eat her."
He was carrying her off, when the eagle darted upon him, and soaring to his ærie on the summit of an inaccessible rock, composedly made a meal of both hawk and dove. Then picking his teeth with his claws, he exclaimed with great complacency, "what a glorious thing it is to be king of the birds!"
"Humph," exclaimed I, rubbing my eyes, for it seemed I had been half asleep, "humph, a man is not so much worse than his neighbors after all;" and shaking off the spell that was over me, bent my steps homewards, wondering why it was, that it seemed as if all living things were created for the sole purpose of preying on each other. The only solution which offered itself to my mind was, that the pleasure arising from eating, is much greater than the pain of being and that this propensity to devouring each other, on the whole, conduces to the general happiness.
THE MOSS ROSE.
Of the thousand allegories upon this favorite flower, the best may be traced to one of the celebrated "Parables of Krummacher." But though so frequently paraphrased in prose and verse, no ornament that the ingenuity of the translator has superadded, can compare with the exquisite simplicity of the original, which is here given immediately from the German:—
"The angel who takes care of the flowers, and sprinkles upon them the dew in the still night, slumbered on a spring day in the shade of a rose-bush. And when he awoke, he said, with a smiling countenance—Most beautiful of my children, I thank thee for thy refreshing odor and cooling shade. Could you now ask any favor, how willingly would I grant it!
Adorn me then with a new charm, said the spirit of the rose-bush, in a beseeching tone. And the angel adorned the loveliest of flowers with simple moss.
Sweetly it stood then in modest attire, the MOSS ROSE, the most beautiful of its kind.
Lovely Lina—lay aside the splendid ornament and the glittering jewel, and listen to the instructions of maternal nature."
