Our modern minds, however, find a difficulty in admiring the violence of the antique virtues. Their boundless love of the commonwealth is pushed to an almost criminal excess. Who has not marked with how ferocious an ardour they hunt the bees! Yet certain species of wasps can make honey; but only in fine climates, which, knowing no winter, allow the wasps an interval of peaceful labour. Here the case is different. Their life, cut short in six months, compels them to resort to measures of cruel simplicity. Honey is needed for their children. Thereupon they attack the bee, and take it prisoner; with their pliable body, whose waist is a mere thread, they so curve the extremity as to stab the prisoner underneath with their deadly sting; when thus stricken, the wasp saws it with three strokes of its teeth, and leaves the head and corselet to palpitate for some time longer, while the belly, filled with honey, the barbarian carries off as a gift for its young.
It feels no remorse. The death of others apparently does not cause a pang to this creature, which knows that it too will die to-morrow.
What do I say?
Our virgins of Tauris do not wait until Nature lays upon them her heavy hand and the ignoble leaden shroud of winter. They have borne the sword; they will die by the sword. The republic ends in a general massacre. The children, recently, ay, and still, so dear, are slain; dilatory children whom cold and want would kill to-morrow; their sisters, aunts, and affectionate nurses securing them at least the advantage of dying by the hands of those who love them. This latter gift, a speedy death, is freely bestowed on numerous unfortunates who had no thought of soliciting it,—on little useless males, even on young workers who were born late, and cannot boast of a constitution sufficiently strong to resist the winter.
Let it not be said that the heroic race of wasps is ever seen to request the humiliating hospitality of the smoky roofs of man, and, for the sake of living a little longer, to expose its melancholy remains in the shambles of a spider's web! No, children! No, sisters! Die! The republic is immortal. Some one of us, favoured by the yearly miracle and great lottery of Nature, will be called upon to recommence the entire work. And if but one remains, it is enough. Should the world perish, a single true heart would suffice to re-create it.
VI.—THE BEES: A TOMB AT PÈRE-LACHAISE.