From the odorous jungle they came, flitting in gay inconsequence,
steering a course of "slanting indeterminates," yet full of the power
and the passion of the moment. They flitted between the idle boom and
the deck, and up the gleaming sky in all the sizes that distance grades
between nearness and infinity.
There were Islands near at hand and some afar off. What instinct guided
them--for butterflies are short-sighted creatures--I know not. If wind
had come, as we who lolled lazily in the boat longed, the myriad host of
resplendent creatures would have been scattered and millions beaten down
into the sea, above which they flew with such airy levity.
What instinct guided the frail, unreflective creatures across miles of
ocean to the Islands of the Blest among butterflies.
In their variety, too, they were entertaining. In great number was the
pretty frailty, whose wings are compact of transparencies and purple
blotches. In this full, fierce light the purple is black and the
transparencies all steel-like glitter. They came across in shoals. There
was neither beginning nor end. All the sky glittered with winged
mosaics. Then came the great green and gold and black creature,
accompanied sometimes by his less gaily decorated mate, ponderous of
flight; and, anon, that insect of regal blue, that can flit as idly as
any of the order, and yet dart in and out of the jungle and over the
tree-tops, with swallow-like swiftness.
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