A FLY that had lodged on a crumbling wall, seeing other flies swarming around it, began to boast about their numbers, saying:

“Look at us! Multitudes in this little space! We are everywhere—in the garden among the flowers, in the field amid the clover, in the woods darting in and out of the sunbeams that fall between the branches.”

Here a humming-bird lighted in a trumpet-vine that grew over the wall. Said the fly:

“You are a traveller, sir, I hear, and have been to other countries. Pray, have you ever been in any place where there are no flies?”

“Never,” said the humming-bird.

“Oh that I had your strong wings,” cried the fly, “to carry me where I could see the flies that live far away as well as those that live here! But you have seen them; maybe, now, you can guess how many flies there are?”

“Impossible!” said the bird. “You cannot be counted. Why, all the bluebirds and blackbirds, the humming-birds, and birds of every kind, put together, are as nothing compared with you!”

“We are the people,” continued the boastful fly, raising its tiny voice—“not so big as some others, we’ll admit, but look at our numbers: myriads upon myriads!”

“Great in numbers, it is true,” said a mossy stone in the wall, “but one thing you’ve forgotten.”

“What is that?” asked the fly.

“That midsummer is already past, and in a few short weeks the green will have faded from the fields, and frost will cover the ground; and then, though we look diligently for you, not one of all your myriads shall be found.”

That which seems great in the light of the present, when looked at in the light of the future shrinks into nothingness.