"Oh, if we were stars," replied the first, "we should pursue our
tranquil path through the pure element, and should leave this wood
and the whole darksome earth to itself."

"And not," said the other, "sit brooding on the face of the shallow
pool."

The Child was curious to know who these could be who shone so
beautifully, and yet seemed so discontented. Then the first began
to relate how he had been a child too, and how, as he grew up, it
had always been his greatest delight to deceive people and play them
tricks, to show his wit and cleverness. He had always, he said,
poured such a stream of smooth words over people, and encompassed
himself with such a shining mist, that men had been attracted by it
to their own hurt. But once on a time there appeared a plain man,
who only spoke two or three simple words, and suddenly the bright
mist vanished, and left him naked and deformed, to the scorn and
mockery of the whole world. But the man had turned away his face
from him in pity, while he was almost dead with shame and anger.
And when he came to himself again, he knew not what had befallen
him, till, at length, he found that it was his fate to hover,
without rest or change, over the surface of the bog as a Will-o'-
the-wisp.

"With me it fell out quite otherwise," said the first: "instead of
giving light without warmth, as I now do, I burned without shining.
When I was only a child, people gave way to me in everything, so
that I was intoxicated with self-love. If I saw any one shine, I
longed to put out his light; and the more intensely I wished this,