"How strange that any one who claims to be an artist should ever leave a superb structure like this so rough and unfinished!"
"Ah! my friend," returned that skilful architect, the Spider, who was just then hanging his web under one of the capitals of the columns, "you should never express opinions of matters beyond your understanding. This lofty building was not made for such tiny creatures as you and I, but for a very dififerent sort of beings, men, who are at least ten thousand times as large. To their eyes, perhaps, these columns may seem as smooth as the delicate wings of your beloved mate appear to yours."
(Robert Dodsley, Original Fables.)
THE SPIDER AND THE SILK-WORM
HOW vainly do we promise ourselves that our flimsy productions will be rewarded with immortal honour!
A spider, busied in spreading his web from one side of the room to the other, was asked by an industrious silk-wrom, to what end he spent so much time and labour, in making such a number of lines and circles? The spider angrily replied: "Do not disturb me, thou ignorant thing. I transmit my ingenuity to posterity, and fame is the object of my wishes." Just as he had spoken, a chambermaid coming into the room to feed her silk-worms, saw the spider at his work: and with one stroke of her broom swept him away, destroying at once his labour and his hopes of fame.
(Robert Dodsley.)
