Near Chase's birthplace, on the glebe, rose the old Washington Academy,
out in a field, raised in that early republican day when a generous
fever for education, following the act of tolerance, made some noble
school-houses that the growth of towns ultimately discouraged. With four
great chimneys above its conical roof, and pediments and cupola, and two
wide stories, and high basement, all made in staid, dark brick, the
academy yet had a mournful and neglected look, as if, like man, it was
ruminating upon the more brutalized times and lessening enlightenment
false systems ever require.
"Ah!" said Vesta's husband, "how many a poor boy thou hast sent from
yonder mutilated for life, honey, like the lovers of the queen bee."
"How is that?" Vesta inquired.
"You never heard of the queen bee? Women, when they die, may turn to
bees, and reverse their hard conditions in this life. The queen bee has
no rival in the hive; all other females there are immature, and all the
males are dying for the queen. She has five hundred lovers, so lovesick
for her that they never work, and forty times as many maids, like
Penelope's, all embroidering comb and wax."
"How was that proved?"
"By putting the bees in a glass house and watching them. To God all
mankind may be in a glass hive, too, and every buzzer's secret biography
be kept."
"And the queen bee's honeymoon?"
"From her that word is taken.
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