I saw a glory like a stream flow by, In brightness rushing, and on either shore Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie. And from that river living sparks did soar, And sank on all sides on the floweret's bloom. Like precious rubies set in golden ore. Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume, Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll, And as one sank another filled its room. Dean Plumptre says that Humboldt's suggestion with regard to this description has not been found elsewhere, and as it adds to the completeness of the idea conveyed by the figure, he gives it a place in his studies and estimates of Dante. Humboldt said: "It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin in the poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent condition of the ocean when luminous points appear to rise from the breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over the surface of the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling stars." It is with regard to the little things in life, particularly those that are so small that one would be tempted to think at first blush that Dante paid no attention to them at all, that his powers of observation as a student of nature, and his all-pervading love for every even smallest manifestation of her power, is especially made manifest. With regard to this subject, Prof. Kuhns, to whom I have already turned so often, has an illuminating {357} passage, which sums up a large amount of reading of the poet. He says: "The smallest members of the animal kingdom do not escape the observing eye of the poet, and such unpoetical insects as the flea, the gnat, and the fly are brought into use. By means of these latter he has accurately given the time of day and season of the year in one line, where, showing us the farmer lying on the hillside of a summer evening, looking down upon the valley alight with fire-flies, he says the time was that 'When the fly yields to the gnat.' Those pests of dogs, the flea and hornet, are referred to in a passage already given, where the dog is seen snapping and scratching in agony. The butterfly was symbolical, during the Middle Ages, of the death and resurrection of the body. The various phases of its development are referred to by Dante; the caterpillar state, the latter referring to the cocoon of the silk-worm, furnishing a figure for the souls in Paradise, swathed in light; in one passage, backsliding Christians are compared to insects in a state of arrested development."