He had planted a garden, in which grew the biggest and
beautifullest and sweetest roses that any mortal ever saw or smelt.
These roses were still growing in the garden, as large, as lovely, and
as fragrant as when Midas used to pass whole hours in gazing at them,
and inhaling their perfume. But now, if he looked at them at all, it was
only to calculate how much the garden would be worth if each of the
innumerable rose petals were a thin plate of gold. And though he once
was fond of music (in spite of an idle story about his ears, which were
said to resemble those of an ass), the only music for poor Midas, now,
was the chink of one coin against another.
At length (as people always grow more and more foolish, unless they take
care to grow wiser and wiser), Midas had got to be so exceedingly
unreasonable that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that
was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion
of every day in a dark and dreary apartment, under ground, at the
basement of his palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this
dismal hole--for it was little better than a dungeon--Midas betook
himself, whenever he wanted to be particularly happy. Here, after
carefully locking the door, he would take a bag of gold coin, or a gold
cup as big as a washbowl, or a heavy golden bar, or a peck measure of
gold dust, and bring them from the obscure corners of the room into the
one bright and narrow sunbeam that fell from the dungeon-like window.
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