"My friends, you are outcasts, though you do not know it, and you have forfeited your place on earth. For there are two races--trees and man; and for each there is a different dispensation. Trees are silent, motionless, serene. They live and die, but do not know the taste of either life or death; to them a secret has been entrusted but not revealed. But the other tribe--the passionate, tragic, rootless tree--man? Alas! he is a creature whose highest privileges are a curse. In his mouth is ever the bitter-sweet taste of life and death, unknown to the trees. Without respite he is dragged by the two wild horses, memory and hope; and he is tormented by a secret that he can never tell. For every man worthy of the name is an initiate; but each one into different Mysteries. And some walk among their fellows with the pitying, slightly scornful smile, of an adept among catechumens. And some are confiding and garrulous, and would so willingly communicate their own unique secret--in vain! For though they shout it in the market-place, or whisper it in music and poetry, what they say is never the same as what they know, and they are like ghosts charged with a message of tremendous import who can only trail their chains and gibber. "Such then are the two tribes. Citizens of Lud-in-the-Mist, to which do you belong? To neither; for you are not serene, majestic, and silent, nor are you restless, passionate, and tragic. "I could not turn you into trees; but I had hoped to turn you into men. "I have fed and healed your bodies; and I would fain have done the same for your souls." (He paused to mop his brow; clearly it was more of an effort for him to speak than one would have guessed. Then he went on, and his voice had in it a strange new thrill.) "There is a land where the sun and the moon do not shine; where the birds are dreams, the stars are visions, and the immortal flowers spring from the thoughts of death. In that land grow fruit, the juices of which sometimes cause madness, and sometimes manliness; for that fruit is flavoured with life and death, and it is the proper nourishment for the souls of man. You have recently discovered that for some years I have helped to smuggle that fruit into Dorimare. The farmer Gibberty would have deprived you of it--and so I prescribed for him the berries of merciful death." (This admission of guilt caused another disturbance at the back of the hall, and there were shouts of "Don't you believe him!" "Never say die, Doctor!" and so on. The Yeomanry had to put out various rough-looking men, and Master Ambrose, sitting up on the dais, recognised among them the sailor, Sebastian Thug, whom he and Master Nathaniel had seen in the Fields of Grammary. When silence and order had been restored Endymion Leer went on.) "Yes, I prescribed for him the berries of merciful death. What could it matter to the world whether he reaped the corn-fields of Dorimare, or the fields of gillyflowers beyond the hills?