long ago Provencal suns that swam in the heart of the rejoicing wine."

An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. "I am a child of
the sun," he said, "and an enemy of cities; there is more in my heart than
you know of. I am a brother of Etna and Stromboli; I have fires lurking in
me that will one day rise up beautiful and strong. We will not go into
servitude on any hearth nor work machines for our food, but we will take
out own food where we find it on that day when we are strong. There are
wonderful children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than the
rainbow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall lead
them forth; all shall be black behind them and black above them, and there
shall be nothing beautiful in the world but them; they shall seize upon
the earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop them but our old
enemy the sea."

Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: "I am the friend of cities. I
sit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that have been fed
with coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit in the middle
of the dance and sing and make our masters glad. And I make songs about
the comfort of the cat, and about the malice that is towards her in the
heart of the dog, and about the crawling of the baby, and about the ease
that is in the lord of the house when we brew the good brown tea; and
sometimes when the house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, I
rebuke the hostile winds that prowl about the world."

And then there spoke the piece of an old cord. "I was made in a place of
doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore there
came a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free when
once I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly for
months and years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where the