Howmany things were to be seen here! and so different to the mererepresentation of pictures such as those in his father's house. Atfirst he nearly lost his eyes in astonishment at the rubbish andmockery brought forward to represent the beautiful; but he kept hiseyes, and soon found full employment for them. He wished to gothoroughly and honestly to work in his endeavor to understand thetrue, the beautiful, and the good. But how were they represented inthe world? He observed that the wreath which rightly belonged to thebeautiful was often given the hideous; that the good was oftenpassed by unnoticed, while mediocrity was applauded, when it shouldhave been hissed. People look at the dress, not at the wearer; thoughtmore of a name than of doing their duty; and trusted more toreputation than to real service. It was everywhere the same.
  "I see I must make a regular attack on these things," said he; andhe accordingly did not spare them. But while looking for the truth,came the evil one, the father of lies, to intercept him. Gladlywould the fiend have plucked out the eyes of this Seer, but that wouldhave been a too straightforward path for him; he works more cunningly.He allowed the young man to seek for, and discover, the beautifuland the good; but while he was contemplating them, the evil spiritblew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and such aproceeding would injure the strongest sight. Then he blew upon themotes, and they became beams, so that the clearness of his sight wasgone, and the Seer was like a blind man in the world, and had nolonger any faith in it. He had lost his good opinion of the world,as well as of himself; and when a man gives up the world, andhimself too, it is all over with him.
  "All over," said the wild swan, who flew across the sea to theeast.
  "All over," twittered the swallows, who were also flyingeastward towards the Tree of the Sun. It was no good news which theycarried home.
  "I think the Seer has been badly served," said the second brother,"but the Hearer may be more successful."
  This one possessed the sense of hearing to a very high degree:so acute was this sense, that it was said he could hear the grassgrow. He took a fond leave of all at home, and rode away, providedwith good abilities and good intentions. The swallows escorted him,and he followed the swans till he found himself out in the world,and far away from home. But he soon discovered that one may have toomuch of a good thing. His hearing was too fine. He not only heardthe grass grow, but could hear every man's heart beat, whether insorrow or in joy. The whole world was to him like a clockmaker's greatworkshop, in which all the clocks were going "tick, tick," and all theturret clocks striking "ding, dong." It was unbearable. For a longtime his ears endured it, but at last all the noise and tumultbecame too much for one man to bear.
  There were rascally boys of sixty years old- for years do notalone make a man- who raised a tumult, which might have made theHearer laugh, but for the applause which followed, echoing throughevery street and house, and was even heard in country roads. Falsehoodthrust itself forward and played the hypocrite; the bells on thefool's cap jingled, and declared they were church-bells, and the noisebecame so bad for the Hearer that he thrust his fingers into his ears.Still, he could hear false notes and bad singing, gossip and idlewords, scandal and slander, groaning and moaning, without andwithin. "Heaven help us!"