The Life of the Bee 



proportion that exists between the gifts 

 she rains upon love and her niggardly 

 doles to labour ; between the favours she 

 accords to what shall, in an ecstasy, create 

 new life, and the indifference wherewith 

 she regards what will patiently have to 

 maintain itself by toil. Whoever would 

 seek faithfully to depict the character of 

 nature, in accordance with the traits we 

 discover here, would design an extraor- 

 dinary figure, very foreign to our ideal, 

 which nevertheless can only emanate from 

 her. But too many things are unknown 

 to man for him to essay such a portrait, 

 wherein all would be deep shadow save 

 one or two points of flickering light. 



[84] 



Very few, I imagine, have profaned the 

 secret of the queen-bee's wedding, which 

 comes to pass in the infinite, radiant 

 circles of a beautiful sky. But we are 



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