THE BUSY BEE. 



ARTEMUS WARD was once asked by his daughter, so 

 he informs us, " Papa, why do summer roses fade? ' To 

 which his reported reply was, ' Because it's their biz. 

 Let 'em fade." 



This compendious answer has the demerit of its kind- 

 it shuts the door on one problem only to open it on a 

 greater, Why is it their " biz " to fade, and why do they 

 bloom, in the first place? 



Considering how badly we humans have the big head, 

 it is only natural that we should think that if there were 

 no eye of ours to see and no nose of ours to smell, the 

 rose's petals would have no color and no scent. Nothing 

 but the gigantic conceit of the race could ever have in- 

 spired the lines and made them popular: 



" Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



It makes us feel a gentle sadness to think their lives 

 are in vain. Bless your soul, plants wouldn't go to all 

 the trouble and expense of painting and perfuming their 

 blossoms just for us to pick off and smell to. They 

 weren't thinking of us at all, but of winged insects, bees 

 in particular. It is for them they spread this banquet of 

 beauty. Why, only for the bumble-bee there could 

 never be more than one crop of red clover. You re- 

 member Huxley's paradox that old maids are the sup- 

 port of the British Empire. Old maids keep cats; cats 

 destroy field-mice, which prey upon bumble-bees' nests; 



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