Sometimes he goes back for a few days to Hall,
where the gold ducats have made his father prosperous. In the old
house room there is a large white porcelain stove of Munich, the
king's gift to Dorothea and 'Gilda.
And August never goes home without going into the great church and
saying his thanks to God, who blessed his strange winter's journey
in the Nurnberg stove. As for his dream in the dealers' room that
night, he will never admit that he did dream it; he still declares
that he saw it all, and heard the voice of Hirschvogel. And who
shall say that he did not? for what is the gift of the poet and
the artist except to see the sights which others cannot see and to
hear the sounds that others cannot hear?
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE TREE
She was a Quatre Saison Rose Tree.
She lived in a beautiful old garden with some charming magnolias
for neighbors: they rather overshadowed her, certainly, because
they were so very great and grand; but then such shadow as that is
preferable, as every one knows, to a mere vulgar enjoyment of
common daylight, and then the beetles went most to the magnolia-
blossoms, for being so great and grand of course they got very
much preyed upon, and this was a vast gain for the rose that was
near them. She herself leaned against the wall of an orange-house,
in company with a Banksia, a buoyant, active, simple-minded thing,
for whom Rosa Damascena, who thought herself much better born than
these climbers, had a natural contempt.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84