“It does though--better than you ladies look after your long dresses. I wonder whether it is descended from creatures that once had feet, and did not make a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, and would not use them at all, and so lost them. Its ancestors may have had poison-fangs; it is innocent enough. But it is a terrible thing to be all feet, is it not? There is an awful significance in the condemnation of the serpent--‘On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust.’ But it is better to talk of beautiful things. _My_ soul at least has dropped from its world apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.” They did not seem willing to rise. But the glen drew me. I rose, and my wife followed my example with the help of my hand. She returned to the subject, however, as we descended the slope. “Is it possible that in the course of ever so many ages wings and feet should be both lost?” she said. “The most presumptuous thing in the world is to pronounce on the possible and the impossible. I do not know what is possible and what is impossible. I can only tell a little of what is true and what is untrue. But I do say this, that between the condition of many decent members of society and that for the sake of which God made them, there is a gulf quite as vast as that between a serpent and a bird. I get peeps now and then into the condition of my own heart, which, for the moment, make it seem impossible that I should ever rise into a true state of nature--that is, into the simplicity of God’s will concerning me. The only hope for ourselves and for others lies in him--in the power the creating spirit has over the spirits he has made.”