But when the traveler asked the youths what the bird sang, they answered that they had only heard "Tweet-tweet," and "Chirp-chirp." Then he was really angry, but not with them, as you would perhaps have thought. No, he was angry with the bird, and ashamed of it and of himself. And he threw it from him into the air, and clapped his hands to drive it away; and all the youths and girls that stood around him clapped theirs too. "Sh-shsh," they cried, "be off, you are a good-for-nothing hedge-finch, and may be thankful your neck has not been wrung to punish you for making such a noise!"
So the bird flew away, away beyond the sunset, and I think it went back to the Princess and told her all that had happened. And the traveler went, and danced and sang and feasted to his heart's content with the worshippers of Queen Beauty, not knowing that he really had fallen among the sirens after all!
III.
Meanwhile the two other travelers had gone on their way, for neither of them cared about pleasure; one was a grave-looking man who walked with his eyes on the ground, looking curiously at every rock and shrub he passed by the wayside, and often pausing to examine more closely a strange herb, or to pick to pieces a flower; the other had a calm, sweet face, and he walked erect, his eyes lifted towards the great mountains that lay far away before them.
By-and-by there came along the road towards the two travelers a company of men carrying banners, on which were inscribed as mottoes— "Knowledge is Freedom!" " Science knows no law but the law of Progress!" "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" "Utility is Virtue," and a great many other fine phrases. Most of the persons who marched first in this procession wore spectacles, and some were clad in academical costumes. The greater number had gone past, when the grave-looking traveler—he who had interested himself so much in the stones and foliage by the wayside—courteously stopped one of the company and asked him what the procession meant. "We are worshippers of Science," answered the man whom he addressed; "today we hold solemn rites in honor of our deity. Many orations will be made by her high priests, and a great number of victims slain,—lambs, and horses, and doves, and hinds, and all manner of animals. They will be put to death with unspeakable torments, racked, and maimed, and burned, and hewn asunder, all for the glory and gain of Science. And we shall shout with enthusiasm as the blood flows over her altars, and the smoke ascends in her praise."
"But all this is horrible," said the grave man, with a gesture of avoidance; "it sounds to me like a description of the orgies of savages, or of the pastimes of madmen; it is unworthy of intelligent and sane men." "On the contrary," returned his informant, "it is just because we are intelligent and sane that we take delight in it. For it is by means of these sacrifices that our deity vouchsafes her oracles. In the mangled corpses and entrails of these victims our augurs find the knowledges we seek," "And what knowledges are they?" asked the traveler. "The knowledge of Nature's secrets," cried the votary of Science with kindling eye, "the knowledge of life and death; the magic of the art of healing disease; the solution of the riddle of the universe! All this we learn, all this we perceive, in the dying throes of our victims. Does not this suffice?—is not the end great enough to justify the means?"
Then, when the second of the travelers heard these words—he whose face had been lifted as he walked—he drew nearer and answered:—
"No; it is greater to be just than to be learned. No man should wish to be healed at the cost of another's torment." At which the stranger frowned, and retorted impatiently, "You forget, methinks, that they whom we seek to heal are men, and they who are tormented merely beasts. By these means we enrich and endow humanity." "Nay, I forget not," he answered gently, "but he who would be so healed is man no longer. By that wish and act he becomes lower than any beast. Nor can humanity be enriched by that which beggars it of all its wealth." "Fine speeches, forsooth!" cried the worshipper of Science; "you are a moralist, I find, and doubtless a very ignorant person! All this old-fashioned talk of yours belongs to a past age. We have cast aside superstition, we have swept away the old faiths. Our only guide is Reason, our only goal is Knowledge!" "Alas!" returned the other, "it is not the higher but the lower Reason which leads you, and the Knowledge you covet is not that of realities, but of mere seemings. You do not know the real world. You are the dupes of a Phantasm which you take for Substance." With that he passed on, and the man of Science was left in the company of the traveler who had first accosted him. "What person is that?" asked the former, looking after the retreating figure of him who had just spoken. "He is a poet," returned the grave-faced traveler; "we have both of us been beyond the sunset to see the lovely Princess who rules that wonderful country, and we left it together on a journey to this world of yours." "Beyond the sunset!" repeated the other, incredulously. "That is the land of shadows; when the world was younger they used to say the old Gods lived there." "Maybe they live there still,' said the traveler, "for the Princess is of their kith and lineage." "A pretty fable, indeed," responded the scientific votary. "But we know now that all that kind of thing is sheer nonsense, and worse, for it is the basis of the effete old-world sentiment which forms the most formidable obstacle to Progress, and which Science even yet finds it hard to overthrow. But what is that strange singing I hear beneath your cloak?"
It was the bird which the traveler had received from the Princess. He drew it forth, but did not say whose gift it was nor whence it came, because of the contempt with which his companion had spoken of the mystic country and its Rulers. Already he began to waver in his loyalty towards the Princess, and to desire greatly the knowledges of which the stranger told him. For this traveler, though he cared nothing for pleasure, or for the beauty of sensuous things, was greatly taken by the wish to be wise; only he did not rightly know in what wisdom consists. He thought it lay in the acquirement of facts, whereas really it is the power by which facts are transcended.
"That is a foreign bird," observed the scientific man, examining it carefully through his spectacles, "and quite a curiosity. I do not remember having ever seen one like it. The note, too, is peculiar. In some of its tones it reminds me of the nightingale. No doubt it is the descendant of a developed species of a nightingale, carefully selected and artificially bred from one generation to another. Wonderful modifications of species may be obtained in this manner, as experiments with fancy breeds of pigeons has amply proved. Permit me to examine the bill more closely. Yes, yes—a nightingale certainly—and yet—indeed, I ought not to decide in haste. I should greatly like to have the opinion of Professor Effaress on the subject. But what noise is that yonder?"