``When
I hover over the cornfields, or go up into the
depths of the sky, I see so many wonderful things
that I know there must be more. O caterpillar!
it is because you CRAWL, and never get beyond
your cabbage-leaf, that you call anything IMPOSSIBLE.''
``Nonsense,'' shouted the caterpillar, ``I know
what's possible and what's impossible. Look at
my long, green body, and many legs, and then
talk to me about having wings! Fool!''
``More foolish you!'' cried the indignant lark,
``to attempt to reason about what you cannot
understand. Do you not hear how my song
swells with rejoicing as I soar upwards to the
mysterious wonder-world above? Oh, caterpillar,
what comes from thence, receive as I do,--on
trust.''
``What do you mean by that?'' asked the caterpillar.
``ON FAITH,'' answered the lark.
``How am I to learn faith?'' asked the caterpillar.
At that moment she felt something at her side.
She looked round,--eight or ten little green
caterpillars were moving about, and had already
made a hole in the cabbage-leaf. They had
broken from the butterfly's eggs!
Shame and amazement filled the green caterpillar's
heart, but joy soon followed. For as the
first wonder was possible, the second might be so
too.
``Teach me your lesson, lark,'' she cried.
And the lark sang to her of the wonders of
the earth below and of the heaven above.
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