. Many were very broad, leading through
the forest in divers ways, some of them stopping now and then in the
glades, others avoiding them more or less, but none of them were
straight. Always, if you followed them, they bent and bent until after
much travelling you were where you began; and the broader the road, the
softer the turf beneath it; the sweeter the glades that lined it, the
quicker did it turn.

One road there was that went straight, but it was far from the others.
It led among the rocks and cliffs that bounded one side of the valley.
It was very rough, very far from all the glades in the lowlands. No
flowers grew beside it, there was no moss or grass upon it, only hard
sharp rocks. It was very narrow, bordered with precipices.

There were many lights in this wood, lights that flamed out like sunsets
and died, lights that came like lightning in the night and were gone.
This wood was never quite dark, it was so full of these lights that
flickered aimlessly.

There were men in this wood who wandered to and fro. The wood was full
of them.

They did not know whither they went; they did not know whither they
wished to go. Only this they knew, that they could never keep still;
for the keeper of this wood was Time. He was armed with a keen whip, and
kept driving them on and on; there was no rest.

Many of these when they first came loved the wood. The glades, they
said, were very beautiful, the flowers very sweet. They wandered down
the broad roads into the glades, and tried to lie upon the moss and love
the flowers; but Time would not let them. Just for a few moments they
could have peace, and then they must on and on. But they did not care.
'The forest is full of glades,' they said; 'if we cannot live in one, we
can find another.' And so they went on finding others and others, and
each one pleased them less.

Some few there were who did not go to the glades at all. 'They are very
beautiful,' they said, 'but these roads that pass through them, whither
do they lead? Round and round and round again. There is no peace there.
Time rules in those glades, Time with his whip and goad, and there is no
peace. What we want is rest. And those lights,' they said, 'they are
wandering lights, like the summer lightning far down in the South,
moving hither and thither. We care not for such lights. Our light is
firm and clear. What we desire is peace; we do not care to wander for
ever round this forest, to see for ever those