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    gentle pleasures . Or the sixth chapter , of the mouse and lizard , where the one thinks , that because he is grey the bright flowers should throw away their handsome clothes ,, and the other ^ while severely reproving him , cannot , for his part , imagine of what

    use birds are in the world : and the seventh and eighth chapters , where the child is benighted , and the dragon-fly finds for him a c local habitation' in a cave , where let him rest , for ' the leaves have already beaten the tattoo in the evening breeze / and the flowers had welcomed him with their music , the tone of the blue

    bells deep and rich , and that of the white high and clear ; and hanging on the edge of the cave , strawberries which had drunk so deep of the evening red , that they bowed their heavy heads down to his touch :- and the ninth chapter , the legend of the fire-flies—but stop here—we must have this . ' And when he had eaten his fill , he sat down on the soft moss , crossed one little leg over the other , and began to gossip with the fire-flies . And

    as he so often thought on his unknown parents , he asked them who were their parents . Then the one nearest to him gave him answer : and he told how that they were formerly flowers , but none of those who thrust their rooty hands greedily into the ground , and draw nourishment from the dingy earth only to make themselves fat and large withal ; but that the light was dearer to them than any thing , even at night ; and while the other flowers slept , they gazed unwearied on the light , and drank it in with eaorer adoration—sun and moon and starlight . And

    the light had so thoroughly purified them , that they had not sucked in poisonous juices like the yellow flowers of the earth , but sweet odours for sick and fainting hearts , and oil of potent , ethereal virtue for the weak and wounded ; and , at length , when their autumn came , they did

    not , like the others , wither and sink down , leaf and flower , to be swallowed up by the darksome earth , but shook off their earthly garment , and mounted aloft into the clear air . But there it was so vvondrously bright , that sight failed them ; and when they came to themselves again , they were fire-flies , each sitting on a withered flower-stalk . '

    * And now the child liked the bright-eye ( J flies better than ever ; and he talked a little longer with them , and inquired why they showed themselves so much more in spring-. They did it , they said , in the hope that their gold-green radiance might allure their cousins , the flowers , to the pure love of light /—p . 77—80 . And now we could go on with the 10 th cha pter , where the spiders weave their curtain before the mouth oi' the cave , and the moss had grown joyfully for a couch , and the wood became

    stiller and stiller , while here and there fell a dry lt * af which had been driven from its old dwelling-place by a fresh one ; and the child in his loneliness looked up at the stars , which were indeed ' far , far away , yet he knew them , and they knew him , for they looked into his eyes . But , dear dau ghter of Mrs . Austin , do ask your mother not to allow , in the next edition , the spider to creep tip-toe along his web , and give the gnat that gripe in the wind-pipe which soon spoilt his trumpeting . And even the 11 th

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    74 The Story without an End .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 74, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/76/