The Life of the Bee 
[93] 
“ Let us sit on these sheaves,” he con- 
tinued, “and look again. Let us reject 
not a single one of the little facts that 
build up the reality of which I have 
spoken. Let us permit them to depart 
of their own accord into space. They 
cumber the foreground, and yet we can- 
not but be aware of the existence behind 
them of a great and very curious force 
that sustains the whole. Does it only 
sustain and not raise? ‘These men whom 
we see before us are at least no longer 
the ferocious animals of whom La 
Bruyére speaks, the wretches who talked 
in a kind of inarticulate voice, and 
withdrew at night to their dens, where 
they lived on black bread, water, and 
roots. 
“The race, you will tell me, is neither 
as strong nor as healthy. That may be; 
338 
