of all the birds in spring is more beautiful than Man, and the first
coming of the hyacinth more delectable than his face! When spring is
fallen upon the days of summer, I carry away with mournful joy at
night petal by petal the rhododendron's bloom. No lit procession of
purple kings is nigh so fair as that. No beautiful death of
well-beloved men hath such a glory of forlornness. And I bear far
away the pink and white petals of the apple-blossom's youth when the
laborious time comes for his work in the world and for the bearing
of apples. And I am robed each day and every night anew with the
beauty of heaven, and I make lovely visions of the trees. But Man!
What is Man? In the ancient parliament of the elder hills, when the
grey ones speak together, they say nought of Man, but concern
themselves only with their brethren the stars. Or when they wrap
themselves in purple cloaks at evening, they lament some old
irreparable wrong, or, uttering some mountain hymn, all mourn the
set of sun.'

'Your beauty,' said the road, 'and the beauty of the sky, and of the
rhododendron blossom and of spring, live only in the mind of Man,
and except in the mind of Man the mountains have no voices. Nothing
is beautiful that has not been seen by Man's eye. Or if your
rhododendron blossom was beautiful for a moment, it soon withered
and was drowned, and spring soon passes away; beauty can only live
on in the mind of Man. I bring thought into the mind of Man swiftly
from distant places every day. I know the Telegraph--I know him
well; he and I have walked for hundreds of miles together. There is
no work in the world except for Man and the making of his cities. I
take wares to and fro from city to city.'

'My little stream in the field there,' said the river, 'used to make