Somebody
had met a man whose business it was to explore the wilder parts of the world in
search of cactuses, and from him had heard of these insects who are born with
the flowers and die when the flowers fade. A hard-headed man, used to roughing
it in all parts of the world, yet there was something moving to him in the
sight of these little creatures drinking crimson until they became crimson;
then flitting on to violet; then to a vivid green, and becoming for the moment
the thing they saw—red, green, blue, whatever the colour of the flower might
be. At the first breath of winter, he said, when the flowers died, the life
went out of them, and you might mistake them as they lay on the grass for
shrivelled air-balls. Were we once insects like that, too, one of the diners
asked; all eye? Do we still preserve the capacity for drinking, eating, indeed
becoming colour furled up in us, waiting proper conditions to develop?"Walter Sickert: A Conversation"
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