ppled rose bush reared up its twigs,
unfolded its leaves, and bore the most beautiful roses; every one
could see it, and even the black damp wood-snail noticed its beauty.

"I will give my seal to the flower," said the Snail; "I have spit at
it, and I can do no more for it."

"Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world!" said the
poet; and he sang a song concerning it, sang it in his own way; but
nobody listened. Then he gave the drummer twopence and a peacock's
feather, and set the song for the drum, and had it drummed in all the
streets of the town; and the people heard it, and said, "That's a
well-constructed song." Then the poet sang several songs of the
beautiful, the true, and the good. His songs were listened to in the
tavern, where the tallow candles smoked, in the fresh meadow, in the
forest, and on the high seas. It appeared as if this brother was to
have better fortune than the two others. But the evil spirit was angry
at this, and accordingly he set to work with incense powder and
incense smoke, which he can prepare so artfully as to confuse an
angel, and how much more therefore a poor poet! The Evil One knows how
to take that kind of people! He surrounded the poet so completely with
incense, that the man lost his head, and forgot his mission and his
home, and at last himself--and ended in smoke.

But when the little birds heard of this they mourned, and for three
days they sang not one song. The black wood-snail became blacker
still, not for grief, but for envy. "They should have strewed incense
for me," she said, "for it was I who gave him his idea of the most
famous of his songs, the drum song of 'The Way of the World;' it was I
who spat at the rose! I can bring witness to the fact."

But no tidings of all this penetrated to the poet's home in India, for
all the birds were silent for three days; and when the time of
mourning was over, their grief had been so deep that they had
forgotten for whom they wept. That's the usual way!

[Illustration: THE DEPARTURE OF THE THIRD BROTHER.]

"Now I shall have to go out into the world, to disappear like the
rest," said the fourth brother. He had just as good a wit as the
third, but he was no poet, though he could be witty. Those two had
filled the castle with cheerfulness, and now the last cheerfulness
was going away. Sight and hearing has always been looked upon as the
two chief senses of men, and as the two that it is most desirable to
sharpen; th