Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/98

Rh But those big black ants in my garden do not seem to need any sympathy. They have weathered the storm in some unimaginable way, while great trees were being uprooted, and houses blown to fragments, and roads washed out of existence. Yet, before the typhoon, they took no other visible precaution than to block up the gates of their subterranean town. And the spectacle of their triumphant toil today impels me to attempt an essay on Ants.

I should have liked to preface my disquisitions with something from the old Japanese literature, — something emotional or metaphysical. But all that my Japanese friends were able to find for me on the subject, — excepting some verses of little worth, — was Chinese. This Chinese material consisted chiefly of strange stories; and one of them seems to me worth quoting, — faute de mieux.

In the province of Taishu, in China, there was a pious man who, every day, during many years, fervently worshipped a certain goddess. One morning, while he was engaged in his devotions, a beautiful woman, wearing a yellow robe, came into his chamber and stood before him. He, greatly surprised, asked her what she wanted, and why she had entered unannounced. She answered: “I am not a woman: I am the goddess whom you have so long and so