Quasqueton guardian. (Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1856-1858, 1858-05-13
Sauirm ing.


has the following on this subject in the
March number of the Atlantic Monthly !:
Did you never, in walking in the
fields, come across flat stone which had
lain, nobody knows how long, just where
you found it, with the grass forming a
little hedge, as it were, all round it, close
to its edges--and have you not, in obe-
dence to kind of feeling that told you
it had been laying there long enough,
insinuated your stick, or your foot, or
your fingers, under its edge, and turned
it over as a housewife turns a cake, when
she says to hertelf, " It's done brown
enough by this time 2" What an odd
revelation, and what an unforeseen and
unpleasant surprise to small communi-
ty, the very existence of which you had
not suspected, until the sudden dismay
and scattering among its members pro-
duced by your turning the old stone
over! Blades of grass tlattened down,
colorless, matted together as if they had
been bleached and ironed hideous craw-
ling creatures, some of them coleopter-
Gus or Eoneyshelled one
wants to call them-some of them softer,
but cunningly spread out and compress
ed like Lepine watches; Nature never
loses crack or crevice, mind you, OF
joint in a tavern bedstead, but she al
ways has one of her flat-pattern live time
keepers to slide into it y black, glossy
crickets, with their land flaments stick
ing out like the whips of four horse
stage coaches motionless, slug like crea-
lures, lava, perhaps more horrid in their
! perfect stiffness, than even in the inferna
wriggle of maturity.
But no sooner is the stone turned and
the wholesome light of day let in upon
this compressed and blinded community
of creeping things, than all of them en-
JOY the luxury of legs-and some of them
have a good many-rush round wildly,
butting each other and everything in
their way, and end in general stampede
for underground retreats from the region
poisoned by sunshine. Next year you
will find the grass growing tall and green
where the stone lay the ground bird
builds her nest where the beetle had his
hole the dandelion and the butter cup
are growing there, and the broad fans OF
insect-angels open and shut over their
golden disks, as the rythmic waves of
blessful consciousness pulsate through
their glorifed being.
The young fellow whom they call John
saw fit to say, in his worry familiar way
at which do not choose TO take offence
but which | sometimes think it necessary
to repress-that l was coming it rather
strong on the butterflies.
No, | repliei-there is meaning in each
of those images-the butterfly as we'll as
the others. The stone is ancient error.
The grass is human nature borne down
and bleached of all its color by it. The
shapes that are found beneath are the
crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and
the weaker organisms kept helpless by
it. He who turns the stone over is who
soever puts the staff Of truth to the old
lying incubus, no matter whether he do
it with serious face or laughing one
The next year stands for the coming time
Then shall the nature which has lain
bleached and broken rise in its full stat
ure and native hues in the sunshine
Then shall Gods minstrels build their
nests in the hearts of new born human
ity. Then shall beanty-Divinity taking
outlines and color-light upon the souls
of men as the butterfly, image of the
beautifed spirit rising from the dust,
scars from the shell which held poor
grub, which would never have found
wings had not the stone been lifted.