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THE STORY WITHOUT AN END
the leaves wither and fall; the sky is often overcast, and sometimes quite dark.” Then the leaves and the sky said: “The water only apes us; it must change its pictures at our pleasure, and can retain none.” Then the dragon-fly remarked that the height and the depth existed only in the eyes of the Child, and that the leaves and the sky were true and real only in his thoughts, because in the mind alone the picture was permanent and enduring, and could be carried with him whithersoever he went.
This she said to the Child; but she immediately warned him to return, for the leaves were already beating the
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