The Old Street Lamp

But though it had the power to crumble into rust and dust at will, it did not use that faculty. It was put into a furnace, and cast into as beautiful an iron candlestick as you could wish-and it was a candlestick for wax lights! It was in the form of an angel holding a bouquet; and the wax candle was to be placed right in the middle of the bouquet.

The candlestick had a place of its own on a green writing table. And the room was very cozy, its walls lined with many books and hung with beautiful pictures-the room of a poet. Everything that the poet wrote about appeared near him. The room became thick dark forests, beautiful meadows where storks strutted, and then the deck of a ship sailing high on the foaming ocean.

"What power are hidden in me!" said the old Lamp, as it awoke from its dream. "I could almost wish to be melted down! But no, that must not happen so long as the old people live. They love me for myself. I am their child, and they have cleaned me and given me oil. I'm as happy now as the whole Congress of Vienna, and that it something really elegant."

And from that day on, it enjoyed more inner peace, and that the modest old Lamp well deserved.