AND when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss, crossed one
little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the Fire-flies. And
as he so often thought on his unknown parents, he asked them who were
their parents. Then the one nearest to him gave him answer; and he told
how that they were formerly flowers, but none of those who thrust their
rooty hands greedily into the ground and draw nourishment from the dingy
earth, only to make themselves fat and large withal; but that the light
was dearer to them than anything, even at night; and while the other
flowers slept, they gazed unwearied on the light, and drank it in with
eager adoration—sun, and moon, and star light. And the light had so
thoroughly purified them, that they had not sucked in poisonous juices
like the yellow flowers of the earth, but sweet odours for sick and
fainting hearts, and oil of potent ethereal virtue for the weak and the
wounded; and at length, when their autumn came, they did not, like the
others, wither and sink down, leaf and flower, to be swallowed up by the
darksome earth, but shook off their earthly garment and mounted aloft,
into the clear air. But there it was so wondrously bright, that sight
failed them; and when they came to themselves again, they were
fire-flies, each sitting on a withered flower-stalk.
And now the Child liked the bright-eyed flies better than ever; and he
talked a little longer with them, and inquired why they showed themselves
so much more in spring. They did it, they said, in the hope that their
gold-green radiance might allure their cousins, the flowers, to the pure
love of light.