# The Story Without an End (Austin, 1913)/Chapter 11

XI.
But the stars went on their course, and left their glittering picture only a little while before the Child’s eyes. Even this faded, and then vanished quite away. And he was beginning to feel tired, and to wish to lay himself down again, when a flickering Will-o’-the-wisp appeared from behind a bush, so that the Child thought, at first, one of the stars had wandered out of its way and had come
The Child sees the Will o’ the Wisps.
​to visit him, and to take him with it. And the Child breathed quick with joy and surprise, and then the Will-o’-the-wisp came nearer and sat himself down on a damp mossy stone in front of the cave, and another fluttered quickly after him, and sat down over against him, and sighed deeply, “Thank God, then, that I can rest at last!”
“Yes,” said the other, “for that you may thank the innocent Child who sleeps there within; it was his pure breath that freed us.” “Are you then,” said the Child, hesitatingly, “not of yon stars which wander so brightly there above?” “Oh, if we ​were stars,” replied the first, “we should pursue our tranquil path through the pure element, and should leave this wood and the whole darksome earth to itself.” “And not,” said the other, “sit brooding on the face of the shallow pool.”
The Child was curious to know who these could be who shone so beautifully, and yet seemed so discontented. Then the first began to relate how he had been a child too, and how, as he grew up, it had always been his greatest delight to deceive people and play them tricks, to show his wit and cleverness. He had always, he said, poured such a stream of smooth words over ​people, and encompassed himself with such a shining mist, that men had been attracted by it to their own hurt. But once on a time there appeared a plain man, who only spoke two or three simple words, and suddenly the bright mist vanished, and left him naked and deformed, to the scorn and mockery of the whole world. But the man had turned away his face from him in pity, while he was almost dead with shame and anger. And when he came to himself again, he knew not what had befallen him, till, at length, he found that it was his fate to hover, without rest or change, over the surface of the bog as a Will-o’-the-wisp.
​“With me it fell out quite otherwise,” said the first; “instead of giving light without warmth, as I now do, I burned without shining. When I was only a child, people gave way to me in everything, so that I was intoxicated with self-love. If I saw anyone shine, I longed to put out his light; and the more intensely I wished this, the more did my own small glimmering turn back upon myself, and inwardly burn fiercely, while all without was darker than ever. But if anyone who shone more brightly would have kindly given me of his light, then did my inward flame burst forth to destroy him. But the flame passed through the light and ​harmed it not; it shone only the more brightly, while I was withered and exhausted. And once upon a time I met a little smiling child, who played with a cross of palm branches, and wore a beamy coronet around his golden locks. He took me kindly by the hand and said, ‘My friend, you are now very gloomy and sad, but if you will become a child again, even as I am, you will have a bright circlet such as I have.’ When I heard that, I was so angry with myself and with the child, that I was scorched by my inward fire. Now would I fain fly up to the sun to fetch rays from him, but the rays drove me back with these words: ‘Return ​thither whence thou earnest, thou dark fire of envy, for the sun lightens only in love; the greedy earth, indeed, sometimes turns his mild light into scorching fire. Fly back, then, for with thy like alone must thou dwell.’ I fell, and when I recovered myself, I was glimmering coldly above the stagnant waters.”
While they were talking, the Child had fallen asleep; for he knew nothing of the world nor of men, and he could make nothing of their stories. Weariness had spoken a more intelligible language to him–that he understood, and had fallen asleep.