s that!"

In the farm-house lived two young students; the one was a poet and
the other a scientific searcher into the secrets of nature. The one
sang and wrote joyously of everything that God had created, and how it
was mirrored in his heart. He sang it out clearly, sweetly, richly, in
well-sounding verses; while the other investigated created matter
itself, and even cut it open where need was. He looked upon God's
creation as a great sum in arithmetic--subtracted, multiplied, and
tried to know it within and without, and to talk with understanding
concerning it; and that was a very sensible thing; and he spoke
joyously and cleverly of it. They were good, joyful men, those two.

"There sits a good specimen of a toad," said the naturalist. "I
must have that fellow in a bottle of spirits."

"You have two of them already," replied the poet. "Let the thing
sit there and enjoy its life."

"But it's so wonderfully ugly," persisted the first.

"Yes, if we could find the jewel in its head," said the poet, "I
too should be for cutting it open.'

"A jewel!" cried the naturalist. "You seem to know a great deal
about natural history."

"But is there not something beautiful in the popular belief that
just as the toad is the ugliest of animals, it should often carry
the most precious jewel in its head? Is it not just the same thing
with men? What a jewel that was that Aesop had, and still more,
Socrates!"

The Toad did not hear any more, nor did she understand half of
what she had heard. The two friends walked on, and thus she escaped
the fate of being bottled up in spirits.

"Those two also were speaking of the jewel," said the Toad to
herself. "What a good thing that I have not got it! I might have
been in a very disagreeable position."

Now there was a clapping on the roof of the farm-house.
Father-Stork was making a speech to his family, and his family was
glancing down at the two young men in the kitchen garden.

"Man is the most conceited creature!" said the Stork. "Listen
how their jaws are wagging; and for all that they can't clap properly.
They boast of their gifts of eloquence and their language! Yes, a fine
language truly! Why, it changes in every day's journey we make. One of
them doesn't understand another. Now, we can speak our language over
the whole earth--up in the North and in Egypt. And then men are not
able to fly, moreover. They rush along by means of an invention they
call 'railway;' but they often