298 HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY. [xn. 



and above me floated uprooted palms, and tropic fruits 

 and seeds, and the wrecks of a dying world. And then 

 there came another age 



And it grew wondrous cold ; 



And ice mast-high came floating by, 



As green as emerald ; 



and as the icebergs melted in the sun, the stones and 

 the silt fell out of them, and covered me up ; and I 

 was in darkness once more, vexed by many an earth- 

 quake, till I became part of this brave English land. 

 And now I am a pebble here in Reading street, to be 

 ground beneath the wheels of busy men : and yet you 

 cannot kill me, or hinder my fulfilling the law which 

 cannot be broken. This year I am a pebble in the 

 street ; and next year I shall be dust upon the fields 

 above ; and the year after that I shall be alive again, 

 and rise from the ground as fair green wheat-stems, 

 bearing up food for the use of man. And even after 

 that you cannot kill me. The trampled and sodden 

 straw will rot only to enter into a new life ; and I 

 shall pass through a fresh cycle of strange adventures, 

 age after age, till time shall be no more; doing my 

 work in my generation, and fulfilling to the last the 

 will of God, as faithfully as when I was the water- 

 breathing sponge in the abysses of the old chalk sea." 

 All this and more, gentlemen and ladies, the pebble 

 could tell to you, and will : but he is old and venerable^ 

 and like old men, he wishes to be approached with 

 respect, and does not like to. be questioned too much 

 or too rapidly ; so that you must not be offended if you 

 meet with more than one rebuff from him ; or if he 

 keeps stubborn silence, till he has seen that you are a 



