The Foundation of the City 
that a mystery has ceased to be because we 
have shifted its home. 
63 
Now let us leave these dreary building 
grounds, this geometrical desert of cells. 
The combs have been started and are be- 
coming habitable. Though it be here the 
infinitely little that, without apparent hope, 
adds itself to the infinitely little, though 
our eye with its limited vision look and 
see nothing, the work of wax, halting 
neither by day nor by night, will advance 
with incredible quickness. The impatient 
queen already has more than once paced the 
stockades that gleam white in the darkness, 
and no sooner is the first row of dwellings 
complete than she takes possession with her 
escort of counsellors, guardians, or servants 
—for we know not whether she lead or be led, 
be venerated or supervised. When the spot 
has been reached that she, or her urgent 
advisers, may regard as favourable, she arches 
her back, bends forward, and introduces 
the extremity of her long spindle-shaped 
173 
