THE CHILD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 328 
still a child, and are lavish towards the numerous, and, for the most 
part, useless tribe of males. 
It is here we reach the fundamental strata of the City, the aristoc- 
racy of devotion and intelligence. The wax-makers, or bee-architects, 
if they consulted the wishes of the living queen, would never train up 
an heiress to her throne. She is blindly jealous, and as soon as the 
successor is born would have her put to death. They do not listen. 
Those firm sage heads, remembering that we all die, take counsel on 
the necessity of perpetuating the race. And, accordingly, by the side of 
the cells, or close little cradles which receive all the children of the 
republic, they build some spacious chambers, fifteen, nay, twenty times 
larger, in which the ordinary egg, favoured by the conditions of ease 
and liberty, may enlarge and develop at will all its natural faculties. 
The more certainly to ensure the superior growth of the chosen egg, 
they prodigalize upon it a stronger and more generous food, which 
shall give full liberty to its sex, and endow it with fecundity. Such 
is the efficacy of this potent liquor, that if the nurses accidentally let 
fall a drop or two on the neighbouring cradles, the little bees, rejoicing 
in the chance, participate in the queen-mother’s fecundity, although 
in an inferior degree. 
Madam, 
Kings I have made, but never willed to be one. 
[J'ai fait des rois, madame, et n’ai pas voulu Vétre. | 
This dramatic line perfectly characterizes the disinterestedness of 
these prudent nurses. They bestow all the world’s gifts on their 
favourite,—a beautiful and ample habitation, a superior regimen, and 
that paradise of women—motherhood ! 
To the others, on the contrary,—to their sisters, who are born 
resembling them,—narrow cradles, coarse food, incessant work, and 
pain! These will go into the fields to sweat for the people and 
the mother; those, confined at home, will build incessantly, and 
attend to the young. No recreation is allowed to them; I do not 
think they have, like the ants, fétes and gymnastic games. Their 
entire feast will be labour (from which the queen-mother is excused). 
