Banksiae will flourish and
be content anywhere, they are such easily pleased creatures; and
when you cut them they thrive on it, which shows a very plebeian
and pachydermatous temper; and they laugh all over in the face of
an April day, shaking their little golden clusters of blossom in
such a merry way that the Rose Tree, who was herself very reserved
and thorny, had really scruples about speaking to them.
For she was by nature extremely proud,--much prouder than her
lineage warranted,--and a hard fate had fixed her to the wall of
an orangery, where hardly anybody ever came, except the gardener
and his men to carry the oranges in in winter and out in spring,
or water and tend them while they were housed there.
She was a handsome rose, and she knew it. But the garden was so
crowded--like the world--that she could not get herself noticed in
it. In vain was she radiant and red close on to Christmas-time as
in the fullest heats of midsummer. Nobody thought about her or
praised her. She pined and was very unhappy.
The Banksiae, who are little, frank, honest-hearted creatures, and
say out what they think, as such plebeian people will, used to
tell her roundly she was thankless for the supreme excellence of
her lot.
"You have everything the soul of a rose can wish for: a splendid
old wall with no nasty chinks in it; a careful gardener, who nips
all the larvae in the bud before they can do you any damage; sun,
water, care; above all, nobody ever cuts a single blossom off you!
What more can you wish for? This orangery is paradise!"
She did not answer.
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