What worth was the place of honor now?

Was this the place of honor?

The rose tree swooned and drooped! A servant's rough hand shook
down its worn beauty into a heap of fallen leaves. 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."