The Florilegium

Florilegium — Latin, flos (a flower) + legere (to gather): a gathering of flowers. It is what the old readers called a book of passages culled from many others.

Seneca told his friend to imitate the bees: range widely, take only what makes honey, and work it into something that is your own. That is the whole method. You read more than you can hold, you keep the lines that struck you, and years later the keeping is worth more than the reading was.

This is the hive. Not a pile of clippings — a hive.