Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/88

64 form no idea of the motives which induce composite beings to perform certain actions, but as far as I can judge, this self-destruction seems to be unworthy of a being like man.

“When I escaped from the dead body, I passed into the vegetable kingdom, where I became a part of a beautiful flower. Soon after, I found myself in the body of a bee, and in course of time I became a constituent of one of the waxen cells which the little artisan had so cleverly constructed. From the honeycomb I passed into a wax taper, from which I was released by the process of combustion.

“It was now my lot to spend some time among the aërial atoms; but at length I came in contact with the sugar-cane, and became a constituent of the sweet juice from which the lump of sugar was extracted.

“Such is the story of my life, or rather of a fragment of my life. I enjoy perpetual youth. Today I may be buried in a mass of corruption, but to-morrow I may form a part of a newly-opened rose. Time cannot reach me; his hour-glass may be broken and his scythe may be shattered, but still I shall exist. At the present moment I am joined to countless atoms, indestructible and eternal like myself, in a fragment of sugar, but who can tell where I shall be in a year’s time!”

This peroration has been cut short by our firstborn, who has run away with the lump of sugar, and we have every reason to believe that the atom is undergoing new transitions.