Mask Twain (Mr Clemens.)

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3595, 5 July 1880, Page 2

Mask Twain (Mr Clemens.)

The shore celebrated American humourist (author of " The Innocents Abroad," etc.) in his last work " A Tramp Abroad" speaks thus of the ant who hitherto has had an ancient and universal reputation for worldly wisdom :—

" Now and then, while we rested, we watclied tbe laborious ant at his work. I found nothing new ia lirn—-certainly nothing to cLan«e my opinion of him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a strangely overrated bird. Duriug many gammers now I have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come across a living rut that seemed to have more sense than a dead one. I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of those wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, bold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be r 11 that the naturalist peints them, but I am persuaded that the average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of courre; he is the liardest-wording creature in the .-, world—when anybody is looking—but lis leather-headedness is the point I make against him. lie goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and than what does he do ? Go home ? No; lie goes anywhere b.Jt home. He doesn't know where home <w is. His home may be only three feet rway; no matter, he cn't find it. He make his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no soi t of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven time-} bigger than it ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts— not towards home, but in the opposite direction ; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength ; he fetches up against a pebble, and, instead of going around it, he climbs over it backwards, dragging his booty p.fter him, tumbles down the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs bis property viciously, yanks it this way, then tbat, shoves it ahead him a moment, turns tail and lugs it aiter him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into tbe air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a wefd;; it never occurs to him to go around it. No; he must climb it, and be does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top—which is as bright a thing to do, as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there he finds that is not tbe place; takes a curso:/ .olance at the scenery, and either climbs down again^or tumbles down * and staiii off once more— as usup 1, m a new direction. At Vce end of half an.bour he fetches up with?! sis inches of the place he start 1 from: aad lays his burden dowa. Meantime he hat been over a'l the ground for two yards around, pnd c^mbrd v'\ tbe weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he wipes the sweat Lorn his brow, strokes bis limbs, pnd then marches f">n!essly off, in as violent a hur.y as ever. He traverses a good deal of zig-zasr couuLy, and by-aud-by stumbles ou his snne be aiy again. He does not remember to have ever seen it before; he lc >ks round (i see which is not tbe wa r home, grabs his bundle end starts. lie goes though the same adventures he hi d befoe; finrlly sto')S (» rest, and a friend conies alor-g. Evidently the friend remarked that a last year's leg is a very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it. Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get it, but thiuks he got ,it "avound bee somewhere." Evidently the friend eonu'acis to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly roJc (nun not intentional), they t ke hold of opposite ends of that grasshopper le<» f r.ad begin > tug witU a?I their might in opposite direction*,. Presently they fr.ka a rest, and confer together. They decide that something is wrong, they can't mskd out what. Then they «o at it again, just as'before. Sameicu ;, Mutual reerim* inations follow. Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They warm up, and ibe dispute ends in a fight. They lock themselves together and chew each other's jaws for a w2He; then thay roll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg end has f:o haul off for repairs. They make up md go {> work again in the same old insane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one drags off t the booty and him at the end of it. Instead of giving up, he hangs on and "gets his' shins brctsed against every obstruction that comes m the way. By- . and-by, when that grasshopper leg has been dragged ail over he same old grourd once more, it is finally dump:d at about the spot where it originally lay. The two perspiring ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs are a poor sort of property after all, and each (hen starts off in a different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or semething else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time ralueless enough to make an ant to want to own ' it."