grow, and then to faint and droop: its leaves were not so thick, its
flowers were not so fragrant; and from time to time the night winds,
which before had passed away, and had been never heard, came moaning and
sighing among the branches. And the men for a while doubted and
denied--they thought it was the accident of the seasons; and then a
branch fell, and they said it was a storm, and such a storm as came but
once in a thousand years. At last there could be no doubt that the
leaves were thin and sere and scanty--that the sun shone through
them--that the fruit was tasteless. But the generation was gone away
which had known the tree in its beauty, and so men said it was always
so--its fruits were never better--its foliage never was thicker.

So things went on, and from time to time strangers would come among
them, and would say, Why are you sitting here under the old tree? there
are young trees grown of the seed of this tree, far away, more beautiful
than it ever was; see, we have brought you leaves and flowers to show
you. But the men would not listen. They were angry, and some they drove
away, and some they killed, and poured their blood round the roots of
the tree, saying, They have spoken evil of our tree; let them feed it
now with their blood. At last some of their own wiser ones brought out
specimens of the old fruits, which had been laid up to be preserved, and
compared them with the present bearing, and they saw that the tree was
not as it had been; and such of them as were good men reproached
themselves, and said it was their own fault. They had not watered it;
they had forgotten to manure it. So, like their first fathers, they
laboured with might and main, and for a while it seemed as if they might
succeed, and for a few years branches, which were almost dead when the
spring came round, put out some young green shoots again. But it was
only for a few years; there was not enough of living energy in the tree.
Half the labour which was wasted on it would have raised another nobler
one far away. So the men grew soon weary, and looked for a shorter way:
and some gathered up the leaves and shoots which the strangers had
brought, and grafted them on, if perhaps they might grow; but they could
not grow on a dying stock, and they, too, soon drooped and became as the
rest. And others said, Come, let us tie the preserved fruits on again;
perhaps they will join again to the stem, and give it back its life. But
there were