WHAT THE INDIANS SAY 123 
sunbeams were shining through a small window, 
where, in a wretched garret, on a still more wretched 
bed, lay a man who had care and sorrow—yes, and 
worse even than those—in his heart. ‘‘ Would that 
I were dead!” he cried, as he clasped his hands on 
his forehead. ‘‘ Ah, how I envy the sunbeams! But 
no, I will not envy shem, for they are not alive, 
they are inanimate merely.” ‘Are we not alive?” 
said the sunbeams; “cand does nobody envy us 
on that account?”? And the wretched room that 
had seemed quite cheerful whilst they were there, 
became dark and dismal again, as they with- 
drew. 
And now it was the sunbeams who envied every- 
thing—bird or beast, or plant or leaf or flower 
(even the man in the garret)—because they were 
alive. ‘“‘It is hard that we alone should be without 
life,” thought they, and they complained to the 
sun. “Give us life,” they cried; “we are more 
beautiful than anything here on earth, but nothing 
envies us because we are not alive. It is dreadful 
Men tor be;envied.” “And do’ you ‘really think,” 
said the sun, “that you, who have given life to 
others, have no life yourselves? Before I sent you 
to the earth, it was dark and cold and lifeless. It 
needed you, to give it that for which you now ask. 
Do not, then, be discontented any more, but be 
