The loud and troublesome insects of the hour

This post from some time ago has recently reappeared in the "popular posts" section of this blog. I appreciate the reminder, especially in times like these.

From Farnsworth's Classical English Metaphor: Edmund Burke in 1790.

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number, or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meager, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.