s hear.

"'But it hesitated.--It might have been, that, had but some hand been
there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way
past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea--it might have
been! But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together,
and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the
sea!)--it made one leap into the abyss.

"'The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark
pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came
there, and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still
and silent. Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered
its strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed
its way silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains
closed it around. And the streamlet laughed to itself, 'Ha, ha! I shall
make a great lake here; a sea!' And it oozed, and it oozed, and it
filled half the plain. But no lake came--only a great marsh--because
there was no way outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out
along its edges; and the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the
water; and the wood dove who had built her nest there flew up to the
mountains, because her young ones died. And the toads sat on the stones
and dropped their spittle in the water; and the reeds were yellow that
grew along the edge. And at night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the
water, so that the stars could not see through it; and by day a fine
white mist hung over it, and the sunbeams could not play on it. And no
man knew that once the marsh had leapt forth clear and blue from under
a hood of snow on the mountain's top: aye, and that the turning of one
stone might have caused that it had run on and on, and mingled its song
with the sea's song for ever.'"

The stranger was silent for a while.

Then he said, "Should he answer you and say, 'What do I care! What are
coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men
within my hand'; tell him no further.

"But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to
him, clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: 'The morning
may break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the
evening's sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning's
dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, 'Ah,
for the beauty of that day!'--For the