rnel had already been
eaten up above, and these light and kernel-less nuts were accompanied by
sibilations or laughter. On others again no nuts at all, empty or full,
came down. But nuts or no nuts, full nuts or empty nuts, the purblind
creatures below went on wandering and singing. A traveller one day
stopped one of these creatures whose voice was peculiarly disagreeable,
and asked "Why do you sing like this? Is it for pleasure that you do it,
or for pain? What do you get out of it? Is it for the sake of those up
there? Is it for your own sake--for the sake of your family--for whose
sake? Do you think your songs worth listening to? Answer!"

The creature scratched itself, and sang the louder.

"Ah! Cacoethes! I pity, but do not blame you," said the traveller.

He left the creature, and presently came to another which sang a squeaky
treble song. It wandered round in a ring under a grove of stunted trees,
and the traveller noticed that it never went out of that grove.

"Is it really necessary," he said, "for you to express yourself thus?"

And as he spoke showers of tiny hard nuts came down on the little
creature, who ate them greedily. The traveller opened one; it was
extremely small and tasted of dry rot.

"Why, at all events," he said, "need you stay under these trees? the nuts
are not good here."

But for answer the little creature ran round and round, and round and
round.

"I suppose," said the traveller, "small bad nuts are better than no
bread; if you went out of this grove you would starve?"

The purblind little creature shrieked. The traveller took the sound for
affirmation, and passed on. He came to a third little creature who,
under a tall tree, was singing very loudly indeed, while all around was a
great silence, broken only by sounds like the snuffling of small noses.
The creature stopped singing as the traveller came up, and at once a
storm of huge nuts came down; the traveller found them sweetish and very
oily.

"Why," he said to the creature, "did you sing so loud? You cannot eat
all these nuts. You really do sing louder than seems necessary; come,
answer me!"

But the purblind little creature began to sing again at the top of its
voice, and the noise of the snuffling of small noses became so great that
the traveller hastened away. He passed many other purblind little
creatures in the twilight of this forest, till at last he came to one
that looked even blinder than the rest