find the two kinds of work placed one above the other, we would not
dare ascribe to them a common origin. The fact of their being
joined together is the only thing that makes them one, in spite of
the incongruity.

But the two storeys do not last indefinitely. When the worm has
grown slightly and is housed to its satisfaction in a heap of
joists, it abandons the basket of its childhood, which has become
too narrow and is now a troublesome burden. It cuts through its
sheath, lops off and lets go the stern, the original work. When
moving to a higher and roomier flat, it understands how to lighten
its portable house by breaking off a part of it. All that remains
is the upper floor, which is enlarged at the aperture, as and when
required, by the same architecture of disordered beams.

Side by side with these cases, which are mere ugly faggots, we find
others just as often of exquisite beauty and composed entirely of
tiny shells. Do they come from the same workshop? It takes very
convincing proofs to make us believe this. Here is order with its
charm, there disorder with its hideousness; on the one hand a
dainty mosaic of shells, on the other a clumsy heap of sticks. And
yet it is all produced by the same laborer.

Proofs abound. On some case which offends the eye with the want of
arrangement in its bits of wood, patches are apt to appear which
are quite regular and made of shells; in the same way, it is not
unusual to see a horrid tangle of joists braced to a masterpiece of
shell work. One feels a certain annoyance at seeing the pretty
sheath so barbarously spoilt.