(no subject)
E retires as quickly as she came and is lost in the crowd; another
replaces her and immediately takes up the work where she has left it
off, adds her own to it, puts that right which appears to her to be
not
in conformity with the general plan, and disappears in
her turn, while a third and a fourth and a fifth succeed
her in a series of sudden and inspired apparitions, not one of whom
finishes a piece of work,
but all bring to it their
common share. Now there hangs from
the top of the vault a small block of wax which is yet without form.
As soon as it appears to be thick enough there comes out of the group
another bee bearing an entirely different
aspect from that of those which have preceded it. One may
well believe on seeing the certainty, the determination, with which he
goes about his work and the manner in
which those who stand round about him look on, that he is an expert
engineer who has come to construct in space the place which the first
cell shall occupy, the cell from which must mathematically depend
everything which
is afterwards
constructed. Whatever
he may be, this bee belongs to a class of the sculpturing, of
chisel working bees who produce no wax and whose function seems to be
to employ the materials with which the others furnish them.
This bee then chooses the place of the first cell. She digs for a
moment in the block of wax which has already been placed in position,
and
builds up the side of the cell with the wax that she picks from the
cavity. Then in exactly the same
way as her predecessors
have done, she suddenly leaves the work she has designed; another
impatient worker
replaces her and immediately takes up the work where she has left it
off, adds her own to it, puts that right which appears to her to be
not
in conformity with the general plan, and disappears in
her turn, while a third and a fourth and a fifth succeed
her in a series of sudden and inspired apparitions, not one of whom
finishes a piece of work,
but all bring to it their
common share. Now there hangs from
the top of the vault a small block of wax which is yet without form.
As soon as it appears to be thick enough there comes out of the group
another bee bearing an entirely different
aspect from that of those which have preceded it. One may
well believe on seeing the certainty, the determination, with which he
goes about his work and the manner in
which those who stand round about him look on, that he is an expert
engineer who has come to construct in space the place which the first
cell shall occupy, the cell from which must mathematically depend
everything which
is afterwards
constructed. Whatever
he may be, this bee belongs to a class of the sculpturing, of
chisel working bees who produce no wax and whose function seems to be
to employ the materials with which the others furnish them.
This bee then chooses the place of the first cell. She digs for a
moment in the block of wax which has already been placed in position,
and
builds up the side of the cell with the wax that she picks from the
cavity. Then in exactly the same
way as her predecessors
have done, she suddenly leaves the work she has designed; another
impatient worker