‘Look,’ cried the Angel, pointing. I looked and saw far away, in the centre of the great plain, one solitary, little soul.
‘Now that is loneliness and desolation indeed,’ I said, ‘what strange and terrible sins did this man commit, that his soul should be confined to such a place?’
‘On earth,’ replied the Angel, somewhat indifferently, ‘he prided himself on having no Imagination!’
THE LOST PATH
A CHILD, whose name we have all forgotten, met three old men walking together, and to each of them put a question.
‘What is there in the heart of the forest?’
‘Nothing but trees,’ replied the first old man, shaking his head, ‘and that, as you will find, is the great sorrow of life.’
To the second old man, the child said: ‘What shall I come to, if I go beyond the hills?’
‘You will come back to this very place in time,’ he answered, mournfully, ‘and that is the saddest thing in the world.’
The child turned to the third old man, who was sighing deeply, and asked: ‘Why are you so sad?’