Child Stories from the Masters | Page 6

strange butterfly! Creature as dear as new:
* * * * *
I never shall join its flight, For, naught buoys flesh in air. If it touch the sea--good night! Death sure and swift waits there.
--From Browning's "Amphibian."
[Illustration:
By Yeend King
"AT THE FARTHEST END OF THE MEADOW"]
A FISH AND A BUTTERFLY.
At the very farthest end of the meadow there is water, blue with sky. It flows on and on, growing broad and strong farther down, to turn the mill wheel. But here in the meadow, you can see far off on the other side, and hear the cows ripping off the tender grass, and smell the perfume of wild plums.
Boy Blue lay in the long cool grass watching the water. How sleepily it moved, and what a pretty song it sang! How clear! he could count the pebbles at the bottom; and there, swimming straight toward him, came a tiny fish, making little darts from one side to another, and snapping at the tadpoles on the way. Then he stopped just in front of him.
"Oh, dear!" said a voice; and the little boy could not tell whether it was the fish, or the tomtit scolding on the elder bush. "Dear me!" came the voice again; and the little fish sighed, making a bubble on the top of the water, and rings that grew and grew till they reached the other bank.
"What's the matter?" asked Boy Blue.
"I'd like a new play and new playmates," sighed the fish. "I'm so tired of the old ones!"
"Oh," said the boy, and was just about to ask, "Would I do?" when there came floating along in the air a beautiful butterfly, floating, floating like a ship in full sail.
"Oh!" cried the fish, "how beautiful! how beautiful! Come let us play together--let us play."
The butterfly rested on a thistle bloom and stirred her pale wings thoughtfully. "Play?" she said.
"Yes, let us play. How beautiful thou art!"
"And thou!" said the butterfly; "all the shine of the sun and sea gleams in thy armor. Let us play together."
"Let us play."
"Come then," said the butterfly; "come up into the fresh morning air and the sunlight, where everything smiles this sweet May day."
"There?" cried the fish; "I would die there; I would die! There is no life for me in your sunshine world. But come with me into this glittering stream; here swimming against the swift current is strong life. Come, let us play here."
But the butterfly trembled. "There?" she cried; "if I touched one single little wave I should be swept out and away forever. There is no life for me in the glittering stream."
They looked across at each other.
"But see," said the butterfly, "I will come as near as I dare to your water world;" and she spread her beautiful wings and floated down to the edge of the water. The fish with a great stroke swam toward her. But they could only touch the same bit of earth, and the waves always bore him back.
"Ah," he cried at last, "it is useless! we cannot play together."
"Ah," wept the butterfly, "we cannot play together."
"Boy Blue," said the farmer, brushing aside the long grass, "you were asleep."
"Asleep!" said the little boy, jumping up; "I couldn't have been. I heard every word the fish and the butterfly said."

The indescribable-- Here it is done; The woman soul Leadeth us upward and on.
--From Goethe's "Faust."
[Illustration:
By Jules Le Febvre
LISEUSE]
HOW MARGARET LED FAUST THROUGH THE PERFECT WORLD.
There was once a very great man who understood all of the most mysterious things in the world. He knew quite perfectly how spiders spun and how the firefly kept his lantern burning. All of these marvelous things were plain to him, for he had read everything that had been written in books, and he had spent his whole life searching and peering through a strange glass at the most wonderful small things. Always and always he was thinking in his heart, "When I know everything then I shall be content, surely!"
So he went on searching and looking and reading, night and day, in his dim room. Always he was growing older and wearier, but he did not think of that; he only knew that the strange longing was growing in his heart, and that he was never any happier than before. But he would say to himself, "It is because there is something I have not learned. When I know everything, then surely the joy will come to me."
One night he shut his book and laid aside the strange glass, and sat quite still in the dim room. He had found that there was nothing more to be learned; there was nothing of all the mysteries that he did not know perfectly.
And behold, the longing was still in his heart, and no gladness came. He only felt how weary and