72 BEAUTIFUL "BIRDS 
black he cannot be so very beautiful, for he cannot 
be of all sorts of beautiful colours like the other 
ones.” But have you not heard of a black diamond? 
That is black, but iz its blackness all sorts of 
wonderful colours are lying asleep, and sometimes 
they wake up and flash out of it, as the sun’s rays 
do out of a dark, stormy cloud, and then they go 
back into it again and are lost, as the sun’s rays are 
lost when the sun goes in. Yes, they are asleep, 
those colours, and whilst they are asleep the diamond 
is really black, but when they wake up and begin 
to gleam and flash, and sparkle, and shoot about, 
then it is not a d/ack diamond any more, although 
we may call it so. 
And there may be a dark, deep cavern, so dark 
and so deep that you would be quite afraid to go 
into it, especially at night. But some gipsies, who 
were not afraid, have gone into it and have lighted 
a fire, and the flames leap up and glimmer through 
the smoke, and then sink for a moment and shoot 
up again, and fall on the sides and roof of the 
cavern, and make a deep glow in its mouth, and 
flicker on the leaves of the trees outside, and send 
out long tongues of flame that make a red light 
in the air and lick the darkness off everything that 
they touch. That cavern was dark and black before 
the fire was lighted in it, and when the fire goes out 
