come when we shall be resigned for a few hours tranquilly to
represent in this world an interesting form of material activity;
and then, our few hours over, to assume, without surprise and
without regret, that other form which is the unconscious, the
unknown, the slumbering, and the eternal?

[21]

But we are forgetting the hive wherein the swarming bees have begun
to lose patience, the hive whose black and vibrating waves are
bubbling and overflowing, like a brazen cup beneath an ardent sun.
It is noon; and the heat so great that the assembled trees would
seem almost to hold back their leaves, as a man holds his breath
before something very tender but very grave. The bees give their
honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who attends them; but more
precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of June,
to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take
part happen only when skies are pure, at the winsome hours of the
year when flowers keep holiday. They are the soul of the summer, the
clock whose dial records the moments of plenty; they are the
untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float; the guide of the
quivering light-ray, the song of the slumberous, languid air; and
their flight is the token, the sure and melodious note, of all the
myriad fragile joys that are born in the heat and dwell in the
sunshine. They teach us to tune our ear to the softest, most
intimate whisper of these good, natural hours. To him who has known
them and loved them, a summer where there are no bees becomes as sad
and as empty as one without flowers or birds.

[22]