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 
