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Bimbi by Louise de la Ramee
page 76 of 161 (47%)
"Il faut souffrir pour etre belle," said the Banksiae in a good-
natured effort at consolation. She was not going to answer them,
and she made believe that her tears were only dew, though it was
high noon and all the dewdrops had been drunk by the sun, who by
noontime gets tired of climbing and grows thirsty.

Her next essay was much finer, and the knife whipped that off
also. That summer she bore more and more blossoms, and always the
knife cut them away, for she had been made one of the great race
of Rosa Indica.

Now, a rose tree, when a blossom is chopped or broken off, suffers
precisely as we human mortals do if we lose a finger; but the rose
tree, being a much more perfect and delicate handiwork of nature
than any human being, has a faculty we have not: it lives and has
a sentient soul in every one of its roses, and whatever one of
these endures the tree entire endures also by sympathy. You think
this very wonderful? Not at all. It is no whit more wonderful than
that a lizard's tail chopped off runs about by itself, or that a
dog can scent a foe or a thief whilst the foe or the thief is yet
miles away. All these things are most wonderful, or not at all so-
-just as you like.

In a little while she bore another child: this time it was a fine
fair creature, quite perfect in its hues and shapes. "I never saw
a prettier!" said an emperor butterfly, pausing near for a moment;
at that moment the knife of the gardener severed the rosebud's
stalk.

"The lady wants one for her bouquet de corsage: she goes to the
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