The butterflies, the poor butterflies that have gone out of fashion in
these days, played, I am ashamed to say, a large part in my life during
my childhood, as did also the flies, beetles and lady-bugs and all the
insects that are found upon flowers and in the grass. Although it gave
me a great deal of pain to kill them, I was making a collection of them,
and I was almost always seen with a butterfly net in my hand. Those
flying about in our yard, that had strayed our way from the country,
were not very beautiful it must be confessed, but I had the garden and
woods of Limoise which all the summer long was a hunting-ground ever
full of surprises and wonders.
But the caricatures by Topffer upon this subject made me thoughtful; and
when Lucette one day caught me with several butterflies in my hat, and
in her incomparably mocking voice called me, “Mr. Cryptogram,” I was
much humiliated.