Flea-bites go down after a while--and so do they.
What are they but the bumps which we human fleas make in the old earth's skin?
.

Make them?
We only cause them, as fleas cause flea-bites....
What are all the works of man, but a sort of cutaneous disorder in this unhealthy earth-hide, and we a race of larger fleas, running about among its fur, which we call trees?
Why should not the earth be an animal?
How do I know it is not?
Because it is too big?
Bah! What is big, and what is little?
Because it has not the shape of one ?....

Look into a fisherman's net, and see what forms are there! Because it does not speak ?....

Perhaps it has nothing to say, being too busy.

Perhaps it can talk no more sense than we....