They moved not a limb or feature, save the finger of the right hand, which ever and anon moved slowly pointing, and regulated the fates of men as the hand of the dial speaks the career of time.
One only of the three thousand and ten wore not the same aspect as his crowned brethren,--a star smaller than the rest, and less luminous; the countenance of this star was not impressed with the awful calmness of the others, but there were sullenness and discontent upon his mighty brow.
And this star said to himself, "Behold! I am created less glorious than my fellows, and the archangel apportions not to me the same lordly destinies.

Not for me are the dooms of kings and bards, the rulers of empires, or, yet nobler, the swayers and harmonists of souls.

Sluggish are the spirits and base the lot of the men I am ordained to lead through a dull life to a fameless grave.

And wherefore?
Is it mine own fault, or is it the fault which is not mine, that I was woven of beams less glorious than my brethren?
Lo! when the archangel comes, I will bow not my crowned head to his decrees.

I will speak, as the ancestral Lucifer before me: _he_ rebelled because of his glory, _I_ because of my obscurity; _he_ from the ambition of pride, and _I_ from its discontent." And while the star was thus communing with himself, the upward heavens were parted as by a long river of light, and adown that stream swiftly, and without sound, sped the archangel visitor of the stars.