【老路灯的故事】老路灯读后感_老路灯作者

"What was that?" shouted the herring head. "I think a star fell right down into the old lamp! Well, if the office is being sought by those of such high rank, the rest of us might as well go home." And that was what all three of them did. The old lamp shone more brightly than it ever had before. "That was a lovely gift!" exclaimed the lamp. "The brilliant stars above, whom I have always admired and who shine so much more clearly than I have ever done--even though I have striven, throughout my whole life, to do just that--have sent down to me--poor, dim street lamp that I am--a most wonderful gift! They have given me the power to make those whom I love see clearly anything that I can remember or imagine. What a marvelous present! For that happiness that cannot be shared with others is only half as valuable as the one that can."

"A very respectable and decent sentiment, old lamp," said the wind. "I am afraid, though, that they forgot to tell you that you need to have a lighted wax candle inside you in order for anything to happen. Without the burning candle, nobody will ever see anything. The stars probably didn't think about telling you because they think that anything that shines down here has at least one wax candle inside it. But now I am tired. I think I'll rest." And the wind was gone.

The next day . . . Oh, we might as well skip the next day and jump to the next evening, when we find the lamp lying in an easy chair. But where? In the home of the old night watchman. He had petitioned the six and thirty men of the town council to reward his long and faithful service by giving him the old street lamp. Although they laughed, it had been good-naturedly, and the old man had been allowed to take the lamp home with him. Now the lamp lay in the easy chair next to the stove and looked twice as big as it had when it hung from the lamppost. The old couple, who were having supper, looked fondly toward it. They would have given the lamp a seat at the table had there been a point to it. The room where they lived was in a cellar, two feet under the ground, which had to be entered through a stone-paved corridor. Around the door there was weather stripping, and the room was warm. It was also clean, neat, and cozy. Curtains concealed the bed and covered the two tiny windows. On the window ledges stood two strange-looking flowerpots which their neighbor, who was a sailor, had brought home from the Indies--whether it was the East or the West Indies, the old people didn't know. They were two ceramic elephants whose backs had holes in them that could be filled with earth. In one there grew leeks, and that was the old couple's vegetable garden. In the other a geranium bloomed, and that was their flower garden. On the wall hung a large colored print of The Congress of Vienna. In this picture, all the kings and emperors of Europe were portrayed, and you could see them all in one glance. In the corner an old grandfather clock ticked away. It was always fast but, as the old man said, that was better than if it had been slow. While the old couple were eating dinner, the lamp lay in the easy chair--as we have already been told--near the old stove. The lamp felt a bit as if his world had been turned upside down. But as soon as the old man began reminiscing, talking about all the things that he and the lamp had experienced together--in rain and shine, during the clear summer nights and the long cold winter ones--the lamp realized how pleasant it was to be sitting by a warm stove in the cellar. The lamp remembered everything as vividly as if it had just happened. The wind had really done a good job of refreshing its memory.