"Thy brother whom thou didst think the most inferior to thyself—him whose honest business thou didst despise—shares with thee his heavenly portion. Thou shalt not be ordered away; thou shalt have leave to remain outside here to think over and to repent thy life down yonder; but within this gate thou shalt not enter until in good works thou hast performed something."
"I could have expressed that sentence better," thought the conceited logician; but he did not say this aloud, and that was surely already—something.
The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream.
A CHRISTMAS TALE.
here stood in a wood, high up on the side of a sloping hill near the open shore, a very old oak tree. It was about three hundred and sixty-five years old, but those long years were not more than as many single rotations of the earth for us men. We are awake during the day, and sleep during the night, and have then our dreams: with the tree it is otherwise. A tree is awake for three quarters of a year. It only sleeps in winter—that is its night—after the long day which is called spring, summer, and autumn.