When they
carried her out dead in the morning, the little Banksia-buds, safe
hidden from the frost within their stems, waiting to come forth
when the summer should come, murmured to one another:--
"She had her wish; she was great. This way the gods grant foolish
prayers, and punish discontent!"
LAMPBLACK
A poor black paint lay very unhappy in its tube one day alone,
having tumbled out of an artist's color box and lying quite
unnoticed for a year. "I am only Lampblack," he said to himself.
"The master never looks at me: he says I am heavy, dull,
lustreless, useless. I wish I could cake and dry up and die, as
poor Flake-white did when he thought she turned yellow and
deserted her."
But Lampblack could not die; he could only lie in his tin tube and
pine, like a silly, sorrowful thing as he was, in company with
some broken bits of charcoal and a rusty palette knife. The master
never touched him; month after month passed by, and he was never
thought of; the other paints had all their turn of fair fortune,
and went out into the world to great academies and mighty palaces,
transfigured and rejoicing in a thousand beautiful shapes and
services. But Lampblack was always passed over as dull and coarse,
which indeed he was, and knew himself to be so, poor fellow, which
made it all the worse. "You are only a deposit!" said the other
colors to him; and he felt that it was disgraceful to be a
deposit, though he was not quite sure what it meant.
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