“I have followed down the mountains to a haven in the vale below. All that is lovely in the world of flowers makes a fragrant bed for the dear children; birds singing, they breathe upon the pleasant air; the butterflies play with them. Their limbs shine white among the blossoms, and their mothers come down full of joy to share their innocent delight. They pelt each other with the lilies of the valley. They call up at will fantastic masques, grim giants play to make them merry, a thousand grotesque loving phantoms kiss them; to each the mother is the one thing real, the highest bliss—the next bliss is the dream of all the world beside. Some that are motherless, all mother’s love. Every gesture, every look, every odour, every song, adds to the charm of love which fills the valley. Some little figures fall and die, and on the valley’s soil they crumble into violets and lilies, with love-tears to hang in them like dew. “Who dares to come down with a frown into this happy valley? A severe man seizes an unhappy, shrieking child, and leads it to the roughest ascent of the mountain. He will lead it over steep rocks to the plain of the mature. On ugly needle-points he makes the child sit down, and teaches it its duty in the world above.” “Its duty, mortal! do you listen to the teacher?” “Spirit, I hear now. The child is informed about two languages spoken by nations extinct centuries ago, and something also, O Spirit, about the base of a hypothenuse.” “Does the child attend?” “Not much; but it is beaten sorely, and its knees are bruised against the rocks, till it is hauled up, woe-begone and weary, to the upper plain. It looks about bewildered; all is strange,—it knows not how to act. Fogs crown the barren mountain paths. Spirit, I am unhappy; there are many children thus hauled up, and as young men upon the plain; they walk in fog, or among brambles; some fall into pits; and many, getting into flower-paths, lie down and learn. Some become active, seeking right, but ignorant of what right is; they wander among men out of their fog-land, preaching folly. Let me go back among the children.” “Have they no better guide?”