On the Threshold of the Hive 



inhabitant of another planet who should 

 see men and women coming and going 

 almost imperceptibly through our streets, 

 crowding at certain times around certain 

 buildings, or waiting for one knows 

 not what, without apparent movement, 

 in the depths of their dwellings, might 

 conclude therefrom that they, too, were 

 miserable and inert. It takes time to 

 distinguish the manifold activity con- 

 tained in this inertia. 



And indeed every one of the little 

 almost motionless groups in the hive is 

 incessantly working, each at a different 

 trade. Repose is unknown to any ; and 

 such, for instance, as seem the most tor- 

 pid, as they hang in dead clusters against 

 the glass, are intrusted with the most 

 mysterious and fatiguing task of all : it is 

 they who secrete and form the wax. But 

 the details of this universal activity will 

 be given in their place. For the mO' 

 29 



