SAINT GVIDO. 17 



not jolly stones like those you threw in the water, 

 dear — hard, unkind stones that make them cold and 

 let them die, while we are growing here, millions of us, 

 in the sunshine with the butterflies floating over us. 

 This makes us unhappy ; I was very unhappy this 

 morning till you came running over and played 

 with us. 



"It is not because there is not enough : it is 

 because your people are so short-sighted, so jealous 

 and selfish, and so curiously infatuated with things 

 that are not so good as your old toys which you 

 have flung away and forgotten. And you teach the 

 children hum, hum, all day to care about such silly 

 things, and to work for them and to look to them 

 as the object of their lives. It is because you do not 

 share us among you without price or difference ; 

 because you do not share the great earth among 

 you fairly, without spite and jealousy and avarice; 

 because you will not agree ; you silly, foolish people 

 to let all the flowers wither for a thousand years 

 while you keep each other at a distance, instead of 

 agreeing and sharing them ! Is there something in 

 you — as there is poison in the nightshade, you know 

 it, dear, your papa told you not to touch it — is there 

 a sort of poison in your people that works them up 

 into a hatred of one another? Why, then, do you 

 not agree and have all things, all the great earth can 

 give you, just as we have the sunshine and the rain ? 

 How happy your people could be if they would only 

 agree ! But you go on teaching even the little children 

 to follow the same silly objects, hum, hum, hum, all 

 the day, and they will grow up to hate each other, 



