e little girl.

But Tyltyl was the first to run to the staircase and he returned in
triumph:

"It's all right!" he said. "Don't cry! He is still in the house and we
shall find him again."

And he gave a kiss to the little girl, who was already smiling through
her tears:

"You'll be sure to catch him again, won't you?" she asked.

"Trust me," replied our friend, confidentially. "I now know where he
is."

You also, my dear little readers, now know where the Blue Bird is.
Dear Light revealed nothing to the woodcutter's Children, but she
showed them the road to happiness by teaching them to be good and kind
and generous.

Suppose that, at the beginning of this story, she had said to them:

"Go straight back home. The Blue Bird is there, in the humble cottage,
in the wicker cage, with your dear father and mother who love you."

The Children would never have believed her:

"What!" Tyltyl would have answered. "The Blue Bird, my dove? Nonsense:
my dove is grey!... Happiness, in the cottage? With Daddy and Mummy?
Oh, I say! There are no toys at home and it's awfully boring there: we
want to go ever so far and meet with tremendous adventures and have
all sorts of fun...."

That is what he would have said; and he and Mytyl would have set out
in spite of everything, without listening to Light's advice, for the
most certain truths are good for nothing if we do not put them to the
test ourselves. It only takes a moment to tell a child all the wisdom
in the world, but our whole lives are not long enough to help us
understand it, because our own experience is our only light.

Each of us must seek out happiness for himself; and he has to take
endless pains and undergo many a cruel disappointment before he learns
to become happy by appreciating the simple and perfect pleasures that
are always within easy reach of his mind and heart.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Blue Bird for Children, by Georgette Leblanc

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