The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and, instead of the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we stiffened and hardened and grew black and shapeless, and were buried in the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time. At last a light came to us, not the sun, but a little trembling light, in the hands of a living creature, such as we had never seen. I know now it was a man. Then followed a time of stir and noise and knocking about, such as I shall never forget. We were hewn with pickaxes, and tossed into buckets, and, at last, lifted into the real old sunlight we had not seen for countless ages. The sun was the same as ever, as young and bright, it seemed, as he had been thousands of years before; but we did not bask long in his beams. A period followed of darkness and cold and silence, in which all the world seemed to have forgotten my existence, although I had been dragged out of my native bed, and stored in this den with so much pains. But they remembered us at last. One evening, after passing through a great deal of commotion, I found myself in an open place, with many of my brethren. A light like that we had first seen, after our ages of darkness in the heart of the earth, was applied to us, and then the strangest transformation passed over me. Just as the water had streamed through my green veins in the forest of old, a new element began to course through all my black and stony heart. That light ran through and through me, until I became, not a receiver, but actually a giver of light. Instead of my green fronds, delicate pencils of red and golden flame streamed from me, until I became one glowing substance; and, in my own light, I actually saw living faces looking thankfully at me, and human hands stretched out to feel my warmth, just as of old I had spread my fronds in the rays of the sun. But I was too full of my old vague longings to enjoy or observe any of those things much, for I thought, with glowing confidence, "Now, I am to be something great at last!" It was the last glimmer of that vague ambition in me. My light faded, I grew cold, and, which was worse, I fell to pieces, became mere dust, and was wafted about by the slightest breath, so that I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own identity. I was even ignominiously swept away by the very hands which had spread so gratefully in my light only a few hours before, and tossed contemptuously out into a rubbish heap behind the house.