"If only I were happy like the others!" thought poor, sooty
Lampblack, sorrowful in his corner. "There is Bistre, now, he is
not so very much better-looking than I am, and yet they can do
nothing without him, whether it is a girl's face or a wimple in a
river!"
The others were all so happy in this beautiful bright studio,
whose open casements were hung with myrtle and passion-flower, and
whose silence was filled with the singing of nightingales. Cobalt,
with a touch or two, became the loveliness of summer skies at
morning; the Lakes and Carmines bloomed in a thousand exquisite
flowers and fancies; the Chromes and Ochres (mere dull earths)
were allowed to spread themselves in sheets of gold that took the
shine of the sun into the darkest places; Umber, a sombre and
gloomy thing, could lurk yet in a child's curls and laugh in a
child's smiles; whilst all the families of the Vermilions, the
Blues, the Greens, lived in a perpetual glory of sunset or
sunrise, of ocean waves or autumn woods, of kingly pageant or of
martial pomp.
It was very hard. Poor Lampblack felt as if his very heart would
break, above all when he thought of pretty little Rose Madder,
whom he loved dearly, and who never would even look at him,
because she was so very proud, being herself always placed in
nothing less than rosy clouds, or the hearts of roses, or
something as fair and spiritual.
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