As a boy he had never given a thought to gold or silver. A butterfly had seemed more valuable to him than a gold piece. But he was growing old, and, as I have said, he was beginning to perceive the beauty of money.
The daisies were all around him, and the lark was singing up there in the sky. But how could he cash a daisy or negotiate a lark?
Dreams, after all, were dreams.... He was saying this to himself, when suddenly his eye fell upon the princess's mirror, lying there in the grass—so covered with butterflies, looking at themselves, that no wonder the serving-men had been unable to find it.
The mirror of the princess, as I have said, was made of gold and ivory, and wonderful crystal and many precious stones.
So, when the minstrel took it in his hands out of the grass, he thought—well, that he might at least buy a breakfast at the next town. For he was very hungry.
Well, he caught up the mirror and hid it in his faded doublet, and took his way to a wood of living green, and when he was alone—that is, alone with a few flowers and a bird or two, and a million leaves, and the soft singing of a little river hiding its music under many boughs—he took out the mirror from his doublet.
Shame upon him! he, a poet of the rainbow, had only one thought as he took up the mirror—the gold and ivory and the precious stones. He was merely thinking of them and his breakfast.
But when he looked into the mirror, expecting to see his own ancient face—what did he see? He saw something so beautiful that, just like the princess, he dropped the mirror. Have you ever seen the wild rose as it opens its heart to the morning sky; have you ever seen the hawthorn holding in its fragrant arms its innumerable blooms; have you seen the rising of the moon, or looked in the face of the morning star?
The minstrel looked in the mirror and saw something far more wonderful than all these wonderful things.
He saw the face of the princess—eternally reflected there; for her love of her own beautiful face had turned the mirror into a magic glass. To worship oneself is the only way to make a beautiful face.