Page:The life of the bee (IA cu31924101469827).pdf/349

The Nuptial Flight I fancy my good corn-thrower there could, not understand my tending him without any profit to myself. He was satisfied that there must be some underhand scheme, and he declined to be my dupe. More than one before him, richer or poorer, has acted in similar fashion, if not worse. It did not occur to him that he was lying when he spread those inventions abroad; he merely obeyed a confused command of the morality he saw about him. He yielded unconsciously, against his will, as it were, to the all-powerful desire of the general malevolence… But why complete a picture with which all are familiar who have spent some years in the country? Here we have the second semblance that some will call the real truth. It is the truth of practical life. It undoubtedly is based on the most precise, the only, facts that one can observe and test." 337