cried the naturalist. "You seem to know a great dealabout natural history."
  "But is there not something beautiful in the popular belief thatjust as the toad is the ugliest of animals, it should often carrythe most precious jewel in its head? Is it not just the same thingwith 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 ofwhat she had heard. The two friends walked on, and thus she escapedthe fate of being bottled up in spirits.
  "Those two also were speaking of the jewel," said the Toad toherself. "What a good thing that I have not got it! I might havebeen 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 wasglancing down at the two young men in the kitchen garden.
  "Man is the most conceited creature!" said the Stork. "Listenhow 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 finelanguage truly! Why, it changes in every day's journey we make. One ofthem doesn't understand another. Now, we can speak our language overthe whole earth- up in the North and in Egypt. And then men are notable to fly, moreover. They rush along by means of an invention theycall 'railway;' but they often break their necks over it. It makesmy beak turn cold when I think of it. The world could get on withoutmen. We could do without them very well, so long as we only keep frogsand earth-worms."
  "That was a powerful speech," thought the little Toad. "What agreat man that is yonder! and how high he sits! Higher than ever I sawany one sit yet; and how he can swim!" she cried, as the Storksoared away through the air with outspread pinions.
  And the Mother-Stork began talking in the nest, and told aboutEgypt and the waters of the Nile, and the incomparable mud that was tobe found in that strange land; and all this sounded new and verycharming to the little Toad.
  "I must go to Egypt!" said she. "If the Stork or one of hisyoung ones would only take me! I would oblige him in return. Yes, Ishall get to Egypt, for I feel so happy! All the longing and all thepleasure that I feel is much better than having a jewel in one'shead."
  And it was just she who had the jewel. That jewel was thecontinual striving and desire to go upward- ever upward. It gleamed inher head, gleamed in joy, beamed brightly in her longing.
  Then, suddenly, up came the Stork. He had seen the Toad in thegrass, and stooped down and seized the little creature anything butgently. The Stork's beak pinched her, and the wind whistled; it wasnot exactly agreeable, but she was going upward- upward towards Egypt-and she knew it; and that was why her eyes gleamed, and a spark seemedto fly out of them.
  "Quunk!- ah!"
  The body was dead- the Toad was killed! But the spark that hadshot forth from her eyes; what became of that?
  The sunbeam took it up; the sunbeam carried the jewel from thehead of the toad. Whither?
  Ask not the naturalist; rather ask the poet. He will tell itthee under the guise of a fairy tale; and the Caterpillar on thecabbage, and the Stork family belong to the story. Think! theCaterpillar is changed, and turns into a beautiful butterfly; theStork family flies over mountains and seas, to the distant Africa, andyet finds the shortest way home to the same country- to the same roof.Nay, that is almost too improbable; and yet it is true. You may askthe naturalist, he will confess it is so; and you know it yourself,for you have seen it.
  But the jewel in the head of the toad?