t Man as we knew him, but the successor of
Man. "Where is this land," I asked of the Singing Mouse, "and
what is this time upon which we have come?"

The Singing Mouse looked at the green trees, and at the kind
sun, and at the blue sky and the pleasant waters, and it said to
me slowly: "There was once a city where these trees now stand."

[Illustration: The Bell and the Shadows]

[Illustration]

THE BELL AND THE SHADOWS

Melody unformulate, music immaterial, such was the voice of the
Singing Mouse; faint, small and clear, a piping of fifes so
fine, a touching of strings so delicate, that it seemed to come
from instruments of beryl and of diamond, a phantom music,
impossible to fetter with staff or bar, and past the hope of
compassing in words.

It was the last night of the year, and the bell upon the church
near by had made many strokes the last time it had been heard;
many heavy strokes which throbbed sullenly, mournfully on
the air. The presence of passing Time was at hand. The year
soon would join the years gone by. Regret, remorse, despair,
abandonment, the hopelessness of humanity--was it the breath
of these which arose and burdened heavily the note of the
chronicling bell? Where were the chimes of joy?

"These shadows that you see are not upon the wall," said the
Singing Mouse. "They are very much beyond the windows. If only
we will look out from our windows, there are always great
pictures waiting for us--pictures in pearl and opal, in liquid
argent, in crimson and gold. But always there must be the
shadows. Without these, there can be no picture anywhere.

"Have you not seen what the shadows do? Have you not seen them
trooping through the oak forest in the evening, through the pine
forest in open day, across the prairies under the moon at night,
legions of them, armies of them? Have you never seen them march
across the grass-lands in the daytime, cohort after cohort,
hurrying to the call of the unseen trumpets? In the woods, have
you never heard strange sounds, when you put your ear to the
ground--sounds untraceable to any animate life? Have you never
heard vague voices in the trees? Have you not heard distant,
mysterious noises in the forest, whose cause you could never
learn, seek no matter how you might? These were the voices of
the shadows, the people who live there. Who else should it be to
whisper and sing to you and make you happy when you are there?
Without these people, what wou