What wounded her pride so deeply was just this fact, that they
never DID cut off any of her blossoms. When day after day, year
after year, she crowned herself with her rich crimson glory and no
one ever came nigh to behold or to gather it, she could have died
with vexation and humiliation.
Would nobody see she was worth anything?
The truth was that in this garden there was such an abundance of
very rare roses that a common though beautiful one like Rosa
Damascena remained unthought of; she was lovely, but then there
were so many lovelier still, or, at least, much more a la mode.
In the secluded garden corner she suffered all the agonies of a
pretty woman in the great world, who is only a pretty woman, and
no more. It needs so VERY much more to be "somebody." To be
somebody was what Rosa Damascena sighed for, from rosy dawn to
rosier sunset.
From her wall she could see across the green lawns, the great
parterre which spread before the house terrace, and all the great
roses that bloomed there,--Her Majesty Gloire de Dijon, who was a
reigning sovereign born, the royally born Niphetos, the Princesse
Adelaide, the Comtesse Ouvaroff, the Vicomtesse de Cazes all in
gold, Madame de Sombreuil in snowy white, the beautiful Louise de
Savoie, the exquisite Duchess of Devoniensis,--all the roses that
were great ladies in their own right, and as far off her as were
the stars that hung in heaven.
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