Thus my own daily life seemed empty and shadowy to me, because of the
strong yearning that possessed me to be great like them. It did not
make me discontented or desponding, but filled me with a wild and
feverish expectation which made the present appear nothing to me. I
stretched out my little fronds, and caught every sunbeam and rain-drop
I could; and when a shower came, and the life-giving waters circulated
through my veins, I throbbed with vague desire, and thought, "Now I am
to be something."
But with all my efforts, I never could grow to be any thing but a
little fern! So the summer passed, and then I felt myself growing
shrivelled and old. My limbs contracted, my fronds curled up and turned
dry and brown, and in a few weeks I was scarcely visible. But the
spring revived me and my yearnings, and I grew certainly very handsome
and tall for one of my branch of our family; but still only a little
fern!
The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and, instead
of the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of
steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we
stiffened and hardened and grew black and shapeless, and were buried
in the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those
changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time.
At last a light came to us, not the sun, but a little trembling light,
in the hands of a living creature, such as we had never seen. I know
now it was a man. Then followed a time of stir and noise and knocking
about, such as I shall never forget. We were hewn with pickaxes, and
tossed into buckets, and, at last, lifted into the real old sunlight we
had not seen for countless ages. The sun was the same as ever, as young
and bright, it seemed, as he had been thousands of years before; but we
did not bask long in his beams.
A period followed of darkness and cold and silence, in which all the
world seemed to have forgotten my existence, although I had been
dragged out of my native bed, and stored in this den with so much
pains. But they remembered us at last.
One evening, after passing through a great deal of commotion, I found
myself in an open place, with many of my brethren. A light like that we
had first seen, after our ages of darkness in the heart of the earth,
was applied to us, and then the strangest transformation passed over me.
Just as the water had streamed through my green veins in the forest
of old, a new element began to course through all my black and stony
heart. That light ran through and through me, until I became, not a
receiver, but actually a giver of light. Instead of my green fronds,
delicate pencils of red and golden flame streamed from me, until I
became one glowing substance; and, in my own light, I actually saw
living faces looking thankfully at me, and human hands stretched out to
feel my warmth, just as of old I had spread my fronds in the rays of
the sun.
But I was too full of my old vague longings to enjoy or observe any of
those things much, for I thought, with glowing confidence, "Now, I am
to be something great at last!"
It was the last glimmer of that vague ambition in me. My light
faded, I grew cold, and, which was worse, I fell to pieces, became
mere dust, and was wafted about by the slightest breath, so that I
had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own identity. I was
even ignominiously swept away by the very hands which had spread
so gratefully in my light only a few hours before, and tossed
contemptuously out into a rubbish heap behind the house.
But there, happily for me, I was once more in the sunshine; and the
sun, and all heavenly creatures, think scorn of no one. They smiled on
me, a poor heap of ashes, as if I had been a tree-fern; and the gentle
dews descended on me, as if had been a flower; and the birds and winds
scattered seeds amongst us, until I began to feel once more something
like the stirrings of life within me. I had blended my being with a
little seed, and in the spring, green tufts of life burst out from my
shrivelled heart. I grew, and spread, and drank in rain and sunshine,
until at length I waved and expanded in the summer breeze—a little fern!
Then a bright, transforming thought flashed through me. In the tropical
forest, in the black coal-beds, on the glowing hearth, I had not been
an imperfect likeness and a vague promise of something else, but
myself, in my little degree, pleasant and serviceable; exactly the
best thing it was possible for me to be, filling up my tiny measure of
service in the world, so that the world would have been the poorer for
that tiny measure of pleasure and good without me. How happy I might
have been always, if I had known this before! How happy I am to know it
now!
I begin life again, but I have learned my lesson. I am something; not
something great, but something I was meant to be—a little green happy
fern. At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill
with life, I drink the rain-drops, and the next moment and to-morrow
will bring each its store of work and joy for me, and I shall be the
highest thing I could wish to be, the thing I was made to be. And now
I am here near the tall trees, and among the many-coloured flowers, a
little, happy, lowly fern.
Parables.
The Clock-bell and the Alarm-bell.
—————
"WE have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous
Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the
Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched
carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood
side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day
and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond
my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the
service of man.
"I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how
much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house
or field without your sanction. At your early call, this little busy
hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation, the
boys gather from the fields where they have been working; and the girls
from the laundries and workrooms to the noon-day meal. At your evening
summons, the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard
afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little
world again.
"Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me, who can tell
what I am made for? Since I was placed here first, a hundred years ago,
lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and safely roofed in my
belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been the better for my
existence. I might as well have been lying still a lump of unsmelted
ore in the depths of the mines. I feel so stiff and rusty, that I
sometimes question if they could move me if they tried.
"For you, daily, hourly usefulness! For me, a hundred years of silence!
And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are
very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to
be looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course,
I could not expect to be as serviceable as you—I, with my cumbrous,
ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in
your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in
your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even
if it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."
"Wait!" said the Clock-bell. "There must be some work for you. It would
have taken a hundred such as I am to make one like you. Think of the
trouble there must have been in getting a mould large enough for you—of
the labour it was to raise you so high. You must be set there for some
end, although we do not yet know what. Wait!" said the Clock-bell,
cheerily, and struck nine.
Then there was a sound from within the house, as of many childish
voices singing an evening hymn. A few minutes after, all was still, and
ten o'clock echoed over the silent fields to the sleeping city near at
hand.
But that night there was an unusual stir in the Orphan-house. Feet were
heard rushing hither and thither; and from every window poured forth
the cry: "Fire! Fire! The Orphan-house is on fire!"
And, through the darkness, lurid smoke began to rise from an outhouse
attached to the main building.