ABSTRACT
The grasshopper may be called as an essentially ephemeral creature. He lives from day to day, from moment to moment, taking each day and each moment as it comes. He may also be called an essentially Epicurean creature, looking not to the stern Duty of the Stoic Ant, but to the pleasurable enjoyment of life while it lasts. In English tradition, however, "Grub Street" means not so much a street of grubs, or a grubby street, or a street where one can buy "grub", as the district in London round Fleet Street where authors, particularly journalists, used to eke out a grubby existence from the time of Doctor Johnson onwards. Finally, such authors, whose writings about current events may be compared to the burden of the Grasshopper, are always warning men of the evanescence of human life and the approach of death.
