It was the opinion of the savants of our race who lived in ancient times, many minutes, indeed, before we came into being, that this vast world would dissolve and disappear within eighteen hours. That this hypothesis is not without foundation, and at the same time worthy of the erudition of the ancients, I hope to be able to prove. The great luminary travelling through space has, during my own time, sensibly declined towards the ocean which bounds the earth on all sides. If, therefore, we base our calculation on the space traversed by the sun per second, it will be found that, before eighteen hours have elapsed, his fire will be quenched in the ocean, and the world given up to darkness and death. He has already passed the zenith. For all that, the moment when the bright disc will dip beneath the waves seems distant as eternity, when measured by the span of our lives. I myself have enjoyed several moments of existence, and feel age creeping on apace. I see children and grandchildren around me dancing in the joyous light. I may live a few seconds longer, and witness many changes; yet my life has been so full of sad experiences, as to convince me that, in the course of nature, I must soon follow those who have gone before. In reviewing my past existence, while clearly discerning its failures and follies, I venture to hope that it has not been altogether misspent. My researches have contributed not a little to solve some of the problems connected with the most curious phenomena of hedge-rows and ditches, keeping altogether out of account the facts which I have established connected with the duration of the earth. I have applied the most refined analysis to discover the true constituents of the atmosphere, and the meteorological conditions which promote or destroy insect life. I could reveal secrets to mankind, to which their microscopes and spectroscopes can never afford the faintest clue. These are certain elements necessary to our existence only known to ourselves, as also the important functions we perform in carrying out the wise economy of nature. Men are blind to everything that does not, as they conceive, bear {76} directly or indirectly on their own interest, and in their folly they imagine that our lives are worse than useless. They cannot perceive that we are ministering spirits of the air, sent by an all-wise Creator to correct abuses of which they themselves are the authors. But life is short; all too short for the labour it implies. Alas! my end draws near, and my friends console me by saying that I have done enough to earn lasting fame, and to promote the happiness of my race, until the eighteenth hour witnesses their destruction, and the wreck of this great plain which men call the earth. [Illustration] {77} THE SORROWS OF AN OLD TOAD. [Illustration]