Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and
shapes as it burns; it is a tree, growing very slowly--you can watch
it long and see no movement--very silently, unnoticed. It was planted
in the world many thousand years ago, a tiny, sickly plant. And men
guarded it and tended it, and gave up life and fame to aid its growth.
In the hot days of their youth, they came to the gate of the garden
and knocked, begging to be let in, and to be counted among the
gardeners. And their young companions without called to them to come
back, and play the man with bow and spear, and win sweet smiles from
rosy lips, and take their part amid the feast, and dance, not stoop
with wrinkled brows, at weaklings' work. And the passers by mocked
them and called shame, and others cried out to stone them. And still
they stayed there laboring, that the tree might grow a little, and
they died and were forgotten.

And the tree grew fair and strong. The storms of ignorance passed
over it, and harmed it not. The fierce fires of superstition soared
around it; but men leaped into the flames and beat them back,
perishing, and the tree grew. With the sweat of their brow have men
nourished its green leaves. Their tears have moistened the earth
about it. With their blood they have watered its roots.

The seasons have come and passed, and the tree has grown and
flourished. And its branches have spread far and high, and ever fresh
shoots are bursting forth, and ever new leaves unfolding to the light.
But they are all part of the one tree--the tree that was planted on
the first birthday of the human race. The stem that bears them
springs from the gnarled old trunk that was green and soft when
white-haired Time was a little child; the sap that feeds them is drawn