ts which served as flowerpots. "I can
almost imagine I am seeing it all," she said.

Ah! how the lamp wished for a wax taper to be lighted in it, for then
the old woman would have seen the smallest detail as clearly as it did
itself; the lofty trees, with their thickly entwined branches, the
naked negroes on horseback, and whole herds of elephants treading down
bamboo thickets with their broad, heavy feet.

"What is the use of all my capabilities," sighed the old lamp, "when I
cannot obtain any wax lights? They have only oil and tallow here, and
these will not do." One day a great heap of wax-candle ends found their
way into the cellar. The larger pieces were burned, and the smaller ones
the old woman kept for waxing her thread. So there were now candles
enough, but it never occurred to any one to put a little piece in the
lamp.

"Here I am now, with my rare powers," thought the lamp. "I have
faculties within me, but I cannot share them. They do not know that I
could cover these white walls with beautiful tapestry, or change them
into noble forests or, indeed, to anything else they might wish."

The lamp, however, was always kept clean and shining in a corner, where
it attracted all eyes. Strangers looked upon it as lumber, but the old
people did not care for that; they loved it. One day--it was the
watchman's birthday--the old woman approached the lamp, smiling to
herself, and said, "I will have an illumination to-day, in honor of my
old man." The lamp rattled in its metal frame, for it thought, "Now at
last I shall have a light within me." But, after all, no wax light was
placed in the lamp--only oil, as usual.

The lamp burned through the whole evening and began to perceive too
clearly that the gift of the stars would remain a hidden treasure all
its life. Then it had a dream; for to one with its faculties, dreaming
was not difficult. It dreamed that the old people were dead and that it
had been taken to the iron foundry to be melted down. This caused the
lamp quite as much anxiety as on the day when it had been called upon to
appear before the mayor and the council at the town hall. But though it
had been endowed with the power of falling into decay from rust when it
pleased, it did not make use of this power. It was therefore put into
the melting furnace and changed into as elegant an iron candlestick as
you could wish to see--one intended to hold a wax taper. The candlestick
was in the form of an angel holdin