ward the door, but his movement was not jovial, as
usual.

How many people think they know the world, and know only themselves!

* * * * *

Between heaven and earth lies the slater's realm. Far below is the
noisy tumult of the wanderers of the earth, high above are the
wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds in their vast course. For
months, years, decades, this realm has no inhabitants but the
restlessly fluttering race of cawing jackdaws. But one day the narrow
door halfway up the tower-roof is opened; invisible hands push two
scaffolding timbers out, part way into space. To the spectator below
it looks as if they wanted to build a bridge of straws into the sky.
The jackdaws have fled to the pommel of the steeple and to the
weather-vane and look down from there, ruffling their feathers with
fear. The timbers stand out only a few feet from the door and the
invisible hands cease pushing. Then a hammering begins in the heart of
the tower-loft. The sleeping owls start up and tumble staggeringly out
of their scuttles into the open eye of the day. The jackdaws hear it
with horror; the child of man below on the firm earth does not catch
the sound, the clouds above on the sky pass over it untroubled. The
pounding continues a long time; then it ceases and two or three short
boards follow the timbers and are laid across them. Behind them appear
a man's head and a pair of vigorous arms. One hand holds the nail, the
other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly
nailed down. The "flying" scaffold is ready. Thus the builder calls
it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring
it. Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof
is very high, ladder upon ladder. Nothing holds it together but iron
hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold
and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans. Once it is
tied fast to the broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer
sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel
down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of
match-wood glued together, like a child's Christmas toy. But before he
has bound the ladder fast--and in order to do that he must climb it
once--the slater may commend his poor soul to God. Then he is indeed
between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the
ladder--and a single false step may