I had the
pleasure of finding that Mistress Piozzi had been beforehand with me in
suggesting the same moral reflection.
--I should like to carry some of my friends to see a giant bee-hive I
have discovered. Its hum can be heard half a mile, and the great white
swarm counts its tens of thousands. They pretend to call it a
planing-mill, but if it is not a bee-hive it is so like one that if a
hundred people have not said so before me, it is very singular that they
have not. If I wrote verses I would try to bring it in, and I suppose
people would start up in a dozen places, and say, "Oh, that bee-hive
simile is mine,--and besides, did not Mr. Bayard Taylor call the
snowflakes 'white bees'?"
I think the old Master had chosen these trivialities on purpose to amuse
the Young Astronomer and myself, if possible, and so make sure of our
keeping awake while he went on reading, as follows:
--How the sweet souls of all time strike the same note, the same because
it is in unison with the divine voice that sings to them! I read in the
Zend Avesta, "No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength speaks so much
evil as Mithra with heavenly strength speaks good. No earthly man with a
hundred-fold strength does so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength
does good."
And now leave Persia and Zoroaster, and come down with me to our own New
England and one of our old Puritan preachers.
Pages:
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389