There is another silence, and the angel looks at them piteously.
"I wish to my God I had some of them clever fellows here could argue with you. I never was much good in an argument, anyway, never having had the education. But let me tell you there 's angels could prove to you you 're all wrong. I wish they 'd come here and talk to you, but I don't suppose they 'd care much about us and our wee affairs. But—but how about music," he hazarded, "and poetry? Ay, and poetry."
"As to music—" the elephant threw up his trunk in a sneer—"what music can he make comparable to the birds of summer—the sun going down, and each bird with its separate song, blending into a gently-colored symphony, and the chime of the waves with it, and the rustle of the branches in the sundown breeze?"
"Ay, but poetry."
"It will need poetry," thundered the lion, "more poetry than can be ever written, to equalize the making ugly of earth. The great cliffs shamed by mean houses, and the splendid glades ruined that a train may pass. And the mouths of rivers spoiled by the slag of mills. And great noble trees hacked down. How many an epic to pay for a great forest dying, shepherd? How many a lyric for a tree where little trusting birds had their home?"
The angel throws out his hands abruptly.
"You have me," he says. "You have me!"
He braces with decision, rises to his full height, and suddenly there is nobleness.
"Well, which is it to be?" he asked. "Will you follow my plan, or do you insist I go immediately?"
"We insist."