12/30: a gorgeous passage

Today's bit of work and research had me reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's re-telling of the Ovidian story of Baucis and Philemon, an older couple who unknowingly host the gods Jupiter and Mercury in their humble home. Hawthorne describes the honey that Baucis and Philemon feed to their guests:

"But, oh the honey! I may just as well let it alone, without trying to describe how exquisitely it smelt and looked. Its color was that of the purest and most transparent gold; and it had the odor of a thousand flowers; but of such flowers as never grew in an earthly garden, and to seek which the bees must have flown high above the clouds. The wonder is, that, after alighting on a flower-bed of so delicious fragrance and immortal bloom, they should have been content to fly down again to their hives in Philemon's garden."