The Life of the Bee 
rivals that of Zealand even, the concave 
mirror of Holland; a country that gladly 
spreads out before us, as so many pretty, 
thoughtful toys, her illuminated gables and 
waggons and towers; her cupboards and 
clocks that gleam at the end of the passage ; 
her little trees marshalled in line along 
quays and canal-banks, waiting, one almost 
might think, for some quiet, beneficent 
ceremony; her boats and her barges with 
sculptured poops, her flower-like doors and 
windows, immaculate dams, and elaborate, 
many-coloured drawbridges; and her little 
varnished houses, bright as new pottery, 
from which bell-shaped dames come forth, 
all a-glitter with silver and gold, to milk 
the cows in the white-hedged fields, or 
spread the linen on flowery lawns, cut into 
patterns of oval and lozenge, and most 
astoundingly green. 
To this spot, where life would seem more 
restricted than elsewhere—if it be possible 
for life indeed to become restricted—a sort 
of aged philosopher had retired, an old 
man somewhat akin to Virgil’s— 
«« Man equal to kings, and approaching the gods ; ”’ 
16 
