g
came on, this spirit, this spark of life, had gone out from its
accustomed place. As the day came on, the sounds of lamentation
arose. The friends of that one wept. So I asked the sparrows,
and the sun, and the gray sky why these friends wept. What is
grief? I asked of them. Why should these weep? What has happened
when one dies? Where has the spark of life gone? Did it fall to
these sodden pavements, for ever done, or did it go on up, to
meet the kiss of the rising sun? And the sparrows, which fall to
the ground, answered not. The sun rose calm and passionless, but
dumb. The sky folded in, large but inscrutable. None the less
arose the voice of lamentation and of woe.

"I ask you, Singing Mouse," said I, one night as we sat alone,
"what is the Truth? How do we reach it? How shall we know it?
Tell me of this spark that has gone out. Tell me, what is life,
and where does it go? There are many words. Tell me, what is the
Truth?"

The Singing Mouse gazed at me in its way of pity, so I knew I
had asked that which could not be. Yet even as I saw this look
appear it changed and vanished. And as the Singing Mouse waved
its tiny paw I forbore reflection and looked only on the scene
which now was spread before me. It seemed a picture of actual
colors, and I could see it plainly.

I saw a youth who stood with one older and of austere garb. By
the vestments of this older man I knew he was of those who teach
people in spiritual things. To him the young man had come in
anguish of heart. Then the older man of priestly garb taught the
young man in the teachings that had come down to him. But the
youth bowed his head in trouble, nor was the cloud cleared upon
his heart. I heard him murmur, "Alas! what is the Truth?"

So I saw this same youth pass on, in various stages of this
picture, and before him I saw drawn, as though in another
picture, a panorama of the edifices and institutions of the
religions of all lands.

But the years passed, and the panorama of beliefs swept by, and
no one could tell this man what was the Truth.

[Illustration]

Yet after this young man had ceased to query and had closed his
books, he one day entered alone into one of the great edifices
built for the sake of that which he could not understand. In the
picture I could see all this. I saw the young man cast himself
face down among the cushions of a seat, and there he lay and
listened to the music. This, too, I could hear. I could hear the
peal