‘Your beauty,’ said the road, ’and the beauty of the sky, and of the rhododendron blossom and of spring, live only in the mind of Man, and except in the mind of Man the mountains have no voices.  Nothing is beautiful that has not been seen by Man’s eye.  Or if your rhododendron blossom was beautiful for a moment, it soon withered and was drowned, and spring soon passes away; beauty can only live on in the mind of Man.  I bring thought into the mind of Man swiftly from distant places every day.  I know the Telegraph—­I know him well; he and I have walked for hundreds of miles together.  There is no work in the world except for Man and the making of his cities.  I take wares to and fro from city to city.’

‘My little stream in the field there,’ said the river, ’used to make wares in that house for awhile once.’

‘Ah,’ said the road, ’I remember, but I brought cheaper ones from distant cities.  Nothing is of any importance but making cities for Man.’

‘I know so little about him,’ said the river, ’but I have a great deal of work to do—­I have all this water to send down to the sea; and then tomorrow or next day all the leaves of Autumn will be coming this way.  It will be very beautiful.  The sea is a very, very wonderful place.  I know all about it; I have heard shepherd boys singing of it, and sometimes before a storm the gulls come up.  It is a place all blue and shining and full of pearls, and has in it coral islands and isles of spice, and storms and galleons and the bones of Drake.  The sea is much greater than Man.  When I come to the sea, he will know that I have worked well for him.  But I must hurry, for I have much to do.  This bridge delays me a little; some day I will carry it away.’

‘Oh, you must not do that,’ said the road.

‘Oh, not for a long time,’ said the river.  ’Some centuries perhaps—­and I have much to do besides.  There is my song to sing, for instance, and that alone is more beautiful than any noise that Man makes.’

‘All work is for Man,’ said the road, ’and for the building of cities.  There is no beauty or romance or mystery in the sea except for the men that sail abroad upon it, and for those that stay at home and dream of them.  As for your song, it rings night and morning, year in, year out, in the ears of men that are born in Wrellisford; at night it is part of their dreams, at morning it is the voice of day, and so it becomes part of their souls.  But the song is not beautiful in itself.  I take these men with your song in their souls up over the edge of the valley and a long way off beyond, and I am a strong and dusty road up there, and they go with your song in their souls and turn it into music and gladden cities.  But nothing is the Work of the World except work for Man.’