Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/91

 pair of wings and a drone-pipe? Your livelihood is a universal plunder upon nature: a freebooter over fields and gardens: and for the sake of stealing will rob a nettle as readily as a violet; whereas I am a domestic animal, furnished with a native stock within myself. This large castle (to show my improvements in the mathematics,) is all built with my own hands, and the materials extracted altogether out of my own person."

"I am glad," answered the bee, "to hear you grant, at least, that I am come honestly by my wings and my voice; for then, it seems, I am obliged to heaven alone for my flights and my music; and Providence would never have bestowed on me two such gifts without designing them for the noblest ends. I visit, indeed, all the flowers and blossoms of the field and the garden, but whatever I collect from thence enriches myself, without the least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their taste. Now for you, and your skill in architecture and other mathematics, I have little to say: in that building of yours, there might, for aught I know, have been labour and method enough, but by woeful experience for us both, 'tis too plain the materials are naught; and I hope you will henceforth