§ 87.41 Let us suppose that we have been summoned to an assembly an act dealing with the abolition of riches has been brought before the meeting. Certain others maintain that the materials which the bees have culled from the most delicate of blooming and flowering plants is transformed into this peculiar substance by a process of preserving and careful storing away, aided by what might be called fermentation, – whereby separate elements are united into one substance.
And in our own grasses too, they say, the same quality exists, although less clear and less evident and a creature born to fulfil such a function could hunt it out and collect it. For some authorities believe that bees do not possess the art of making honey, but only of gathering it and they say that in India honey has been found on the leaves of certain reeds, produced by a dew peculiar to that climate, or by the juice of the reed itself, which has an unusual sweetness, and richness. § 84.4 It is not certain whether the juice which they obtain from the flowers forms at once into honey, or whether they change that which they have gathered into this delicious object by blending something therewith and by a certain property of their breath. However, either of these two things is possible to believe: that on the one hand the mountain is growing smaller because it is consumed from day to day, and that, on the other hand, it remains the same in size because the mountain is not devouring itself, but instead of this the matter which seethes forth collects in some subterranean valley and is fed by other material, finding in the mountain itself not the food which it requires, but simply a passage-way out.
The reason for this may be, not that the height of the mountain is decreasing, but because the flames have become dim and the eruptions less strong and less copious, and because for the same reason the smoke also is less active by day. Certain naturalists have inferred that the mountain is wasting away and gradually settling, because sailors used to be able to see it from a greater distance.
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD INHERIT OBSCURITY FULL
§ 79.2 If you will write me a full account of these matters, I shall then have the boldness to ask you to perform another task, – also to climb Aetna at my special request. No one will grapple with him on the way out, or strike him as he departs the quarrelling takes place where the prizes are. The most sensible man, therefore, as soon as he sees the dole being brought in, runs from the theatre for he knows that one pays a high price for small favours. There is not a man among them all, however, – even he who has been lucky in the booty which has fallen to him, – whose joy in his spoil has lasted until the morrow.
Certain of these favours have fallen to men while they were absent-minded others have been lost to their seekers because they were snatching too eagerly for them, and, just because they are greedily seized upon, have been knocked from their hands. § 74.7 Picture now to yourself that Fortune is holding a festival, and is showering down honours, riches, and influence upon this mob of mortals some of these gifts have already been torn to pieces in the hands of those who try to snatch them, others have been divided up by treacherous partnerships, and still others have been seized to the great detriment of those into whose possession they have come.
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