on still clear summer evenings,
when the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes and
cloud-islands, and locks and friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that
they see, away to westward, St. Brandan's fairy isle.

[Illustration: "Tom found that the isle stood all on pillars, and that
its roots were full of caves."--_P. 151_.]

But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan's Isle once actually
stood there; a great land out in the ocean, which has sunk and sunk
beneath the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange
tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars they fought in
the old times. And from off that island came strange flowers, which
linger still about this land:--the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort,
and the delicate Venus's hair, and the London-pride which covers the
Kerry mountains, and the little pink butterwort of Devon, and the great
blue butterwort of Ireland, and the Connemara heath, and the
bristle-fern of the Turk waterfall, and many a strange plant more; all
fairy tokens left for wise men and good children from off St. Brandan's
Isle.

Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood all on pillars, and
that its roots were full of caves. There were pillars of black basalt,
like Staffa; and pillars of green and crimson serpentine, like Kynance;
and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone, like
Livermead; and there were blue grottoes like Capri, and white grottoes
like Adelsberg; all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and
crimson, green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the
water-babies sleep every night. But, to keep the place clean and sweet,
the crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so
many monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten thousand
sea-anemones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day
long, and kept it nice and pure. But, to make up to them for having to
do such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor
chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. No; the fairies are more considerate and
just than that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours
and patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay blossoms. If
you think I am talking nonsense, I can only say that it is true; and
that an old gentleman named Fourier used to say that we ought to do the
same by chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour them instead of despising
them; and he was