[Frontispiece: The Forest Giant] [Illustration: Title page] _The Forest Giant_ _by_ ADRIEN LE CORBEAU _Translated from the French by_ J. H. ROSS _Jonathan Cape_ ELEVEN GOWER STREET LONDON FIRST PUBLISHED IN MCMXXIV MADE & PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER & TANNER LTD. FROME AND LONDON _Contents_ CHAP. 1 THE ODYSSEY 2 THE GENUS TREMBLES INTO CONSCIOUSNESS 3 THE KINDLY DARKNESS 4 CONTRASTS WHICH ARE NOT CONTRASTS 5 CAUGHT UP INTO THE STREAM OF LIFE 6 THE LAW OF BALANCE 7 METAMORPHOSES 8 WHAT THE MOON SAW 9 WHEN THE CORSELET SNAPS 10 THE MIRROR OF CHANGELESS TIME 11 THE WHEEL OF LIFE LIVED 12 WHEN THE WOOD-DUST FLOATED IN THE AIR 13 WHAT IS CALLED DEATH 14 THE THEORY OF ETERNAL SLEEPLESSNESS CONCLUSION: WITHIN A CELL CHAPTER I _The Odyssey_ For years on end it had been rolling, across the plains, through the deep meadow grasses, under the dim echoing archways of the forest. Always, in heat and cold, beneath blue skies, or skies clouded with rain and hail and snow, it had been rolling ceaselessly. One day it would be gilded by the sunlight--but not softened; another day grizzled streaks of rain soaked it--without refreshment. It was buried, to all appearances for ever, by drifts of snow--but was not hurt. It had crossed cataracts of light and floods of shadow; it had been rocked by soft winds and hurled dizzily into the air by the shrieking gusts of cyclones; and it had met all these things--the sweetness of the day, the shade of night, the winters, the springs, the summers--with the same submissive, invulnerable apathy. It had waited its hour, ready, if need be, to wait yet much longer. Those who boast of their travels and adventures should think over this journey and its conditions. We have glimpses of other countries, we climb mountains, we run through woods and fields; but our varieties and difficulties are as nothing to the differences of its varied blades of grass, to its dark holes in the ground, its mounds of earth or snow, to all the obstacles which it met and overcame or slipped past on its road. Our gallops on shore or voyages at sea do not compare with its mad career as the sport of storms and mountain-torrents. Time and space fought over the little helpless rolling body. The elements loosed out their terrors round it like an evil dream, seeming to toss it about in prize.