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THE STORY WITHOUT AN END
harmed it not; it shone only the more brightly, while I was withered and exhausted. And once upon a time I met a little smiling child, who played with a cross of palm branches, and wore a beamy coronet around his golden locks. He took me kindly by the hand and said, ‘My friend, you are now very gloomy and sad, but if you will become a child again, even as I am, you will have a bright circlet such as I have.’ When I heard that, I was so angry with myself and with the child, that I was scorched by my inward fire. Now would I fain fly up to the sun to fetch rays from him, but the rays drove me back with these words: ‘Return
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