. Stories for the household . e I should wish to grasp and to experience. I must go out intothe ranks of living men, and mingle among them. I must fly aboutlike a bird. I must see and feel, and become human altogether. Imust enjoy the one half-day, instead of vegetatiug for years in everyday The Dryad. 897 sameness and weariness, in which I become ill, and at last sink and dis-appear like the dew on the meadows. I will gleam like the cloud;gleam in the sunshine of life, look out over the whole like the cloud,and pass away like it, no one knoweth whither. Thus sighed the Dryad; and she prayed:
. Stories for the household . e I should wish to grasp and to experience. I must go out intothe ranks of living men, and mingle among them. I must fly aboutlike a bird. I must see and feel, and become human altogether. Imust enjoy the one half-day, instead of vegetatiug for years in everyday The Dryad. 897 sameness and weariness, in which I become ill, and at last sink and dis-appear like the dew on the meadows. I will gleam like the cloud;gleam in the sunshine of life, look out over the whole like the cloud,and pass away like it, no one knoweth whither. Thus sighed the Dryad; and she prayed: Take from me the years that were destined for me, and give me buthalf of the life of the ephemeral fly! Deliver me from my prison!Give me human life, human happiness, only a short span, only the onenight, if it cannot be otherwise; and then punish me for my wish tolive, my longing for life! Strike me out of thy list: let my shell, thefresh young tree, wither, or be hewn down, and burnt to ashes, andscattered to all the winds!. THE BEAUTIFUL DRYAD. A rustling went through the leaves of the tree ; there was a tremblingin each of the leaves ; it seemed as though fire streamed through it. Agust of wind shook its green crown, and from the midst of that crowna female figure came forth. In the same moment she was sitting beneaththe brightly-illuminated leafy branches, young and beautiful to behold,like poor Mary, to whom the clergyman had said, The great city willbe thy destruction! The Dryad sat at the foot of the tree—at her house door, which shehad locked, and whose key she had thrown away. So young ! so fair !The stars saw her, and blinked at her. The gas-lamps saw her, andgleamed and beckoned to her. How delicate she was, and yet howblooming!—a child, and yet a grown maiden! Her dress was fine assilk, green as the freshly-opened leaves on the crown of the tree; inher nut-brown hair clung a half-opened chestnut blossom. She lookedlike the Goddess of Spring. For one short minut
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