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.

"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