As When
The Rain Clouds Disperse And The Sun Shines Out Once More, Heaven And
Earth Are Filled With A
Chastened light, sweet to behold and very
wonderful, so because of our lost ones, because of the old grief at
Their loss, the visible world is touched with a new light, a tenderness
and grace and beauty not its own.
XXXII
A WASP AT TABLE
Even to a naturalist with a tolerant feeling for all living things,
both great and small, it is not always an unmixed pleasure to have a
wasp at table. I have occasionally felt a considerable degree of
annoyance at the presence of a self-invited guest of that kind.
Some time ago when walking I sat down at noon on a fallen tree-trunk to
eat my luncheon, which consisted of a hunk of cake and some bananas.
The wind carried the fragrance of the fruit into the adjacent wood, and
very soon wasps began to arrive, until there were fifteen or twenty
about me. They were so aggressive and greedy, almost following every
morsel I took into my mouth, that I determined to let them have as much
as they wanted - and something more! I proceeded to make a mash
of the ripest portions of the fruit mixed with whisky from my pocket-
flask, and spread it nicely on the bark. At once they fell on it with
splendid appetites, but to my surprise the alcohol produced no effect.
I have seen big locusts and other important insects tumbling about and
acting generally as if demented after a few sips of rum and sugar, but
these wasps, when they had had their full of banana and whisky, buzzed
about and came and went and quarrelled with one another just as usual,
and when I parted from them there was not one of the company who could
be said to be the worse for liquor.
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