tect. That is something! That is much! I may become
'honourable,' or even 'noble'--perhaps both. I shall build and build,
as others have done before me. _There_ is something to look forward
to--something worth being!"

"But that something I should not care about," said the fourth. "I will
not march in the wake of anybody. I will not be a copyist; I will be a
genius--will be cleverer than you all put together. I shall create a
new style, furnish ideas for a building adapted to the climate and
materials of the country--something which shall be a nationality, a
development of the resources of our age, and, at the same time, an
exhibition of my own genius."

"But if by chance the climate and the materials did not suit each
other," said the fifth, "that would be unfortunate for the result.
Nationalities may be so amplified as to become affectation. The
discoveries of the age, like youth, may leave you far behind. I
perceive right well that none of you will, in reality, become
anything, whatever may be your expectations. But do all of you what
you please; I shall not follow your examples. I shall keep myself
disengaged, and shall reason upon what you perform. There is something
wrong in everything. I will pick that out, and reason upon it. That
will be something."

And so he did; and people said of the fifth, "He has not settled to
anything. He has a good head, but he does nothing."

Even this, however, made him something.

This is but a short history; yet it is one which will not end as long
as the world stands.

But is there nothing more about the five brothers? What has been told
is absolutely nothing. Hear further; it is quite a romance.

The eldest brother, who made bricks, perceived that from every stone,
when it was finished, rolled a small coin; and though these little
coins were but of copper, many of them heaped together became a silver
dollar; and when one knocks with such at the baker's, the butcher's,
and other shops, the doors fly open, and one gets what one wants. The
bricks produced all this. The damaged and broken bricks were also made
good use of.

Yonder, above the embankment, Mother Margrethe, a poor old woman,
wanted to build a small house for herself. She got all the broken
bricks, and some whole ones to boot; for the eldest brother had a good
heart. The poor woman built her house herself. It was very small; the
only window was put in awry, the door was very low, and the thatched
roof might ha