Flowers gleam in original hues from graceful vases in almost every
domicile where Taste presides; and the hand of "nice Art" charms us with
"counterfeit presentments" of their forms and colors, not only on the
living canvas, but even on our domestic China-ware, and our mahogany
furniture, and our wall-papers and hangings and carpets, and on our
richest apparel for holiday occasions and our simplest garments for
daily wear. Even human Beauty, the Queen of all loveliness on earth,
engages Flora as her handmaid at the toilet, in spite of the dictum of
the poet of 'The Seasons,' that "Beauty when unadorned is adorned the
most."
Flowers are hung in graceful festoons both in churches and in ball-
rooms. They decorate the altar, the bride-bed, the cradle, and the bier.
They grace festivals, and triumphs, and processions; and cast a glory on
gala days; and are amongst the last sad honors we pay to the objects of
our love.
I remember the death of a sweet little English girl of but a year old,
over whom, in her small coffin, a young and lovely mother sprinkled the
freshest and fairest flowers. The task seemed to soften--perhaps to
sweeten--her maternal grief. I shall never forget the sight. The bright-
hued blossoms seemed to make her oblivious for a moment of the darkness
and corruption to which she was so soon to consign her priceless
treasure. The child's sweet face, even in death, reminded me that the
flowers of the field and garden, however lovely, are all outshone by
human beauty. What floral glory of the wild-wood, or what queen of the
parterre, in all the pride of bloom, laughing in the sun-light or
dancing in the breeze, hath a charm that could vie for a single moment
with the soft and holy lustre of that motionless and faded human lily? I
never more deeply felt the force of Milton's noble phrase "the human
face divine" than when gazing on that sleeping child. The fixed placid
smile, the smoothly closed eye with its transparent lid, the air of
profound tranquillity, the simple purity (elevated into an aspect of
bright intelligence, as if the little cherub already experienced the
beatitude of another and a better world,) were perfectly angelic--and
mocked all attempt at description. "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!"
O flower of an earthly spring! destined to blossom in the eternal summer
of another and more genial region! Loveliest of lovely children--
loveliest to the last! More beautiful in death than aught still living!
Thou seemest now to all who miss and mourn thee but a sweet name--a fair
vision--a precious memory;--but in reality thou art a more truly living
thing than thou wert before or than aught thou hast left behind. Thou
hast come early into a rich inheritance. Thou hast now a substantial
existence, a genuine glory, an everlasting possession, beyond the sky.
Thou hast exchanged the frail flowers that decked thy bier for
amaranthine hues and fragrance, and the brief and uncertain delights of
mortal being for the eternal and perfect felicity of angels!
I never behold elsewhere any of the specimens of the several varieties
of flowers which the afflicted parent consigned to the hallowed little
coffin without recalling to memory the sainted child taking her last
rest on earth. The mother was a woman of taste and sensibility, of high
mind and gentle heart, with the liveliest sense of the loveliness of all
lovely things; and it is hardly necessary to remind the reader how much
refinement such as hers may sometimes alleviate the severity of sorrow.
Byron tells us that the stars are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
But might we not with equal justice say that every thing excellent and
beautiful and precious has named itself a flower?
If stars teach as well as shine--so do flowers. In "still small accents"
they charm "the nice and delicate ear of thought" and sweetly whisper
that "the hand that made them is divine."
The stars are the poetry of heaven--the clouds are the poetry of the
middle sky--the flowers are the poetry of the earth. The last is the
loveliest to the eye and the nearest to the heart. It is incomparably
the sweetest external poetry that Nature provides for man. Its
attractions are the most popular; its language is the most intelligible.
It is of all others the best adapted to every variety and degree of
mind. It is the most endearing, the most familiar, the most homefelt,
and congenial. The stars are for the meditation of poets and
philosophers; but flowers are not exclusively for the gifted or the
scientific; they are the property of all. They address themselves to our
common nature. They are equally the delight of the innocent little
prattler and the thoughtful sage. Even the rude unlettered rustic
betrays some feeling for the beautiful in the presence of the lovely
little community of the field and garden. He has no sympathy for the
stars: they are too mystical and remote. But the flowers as they blush
and smile beneath his eye may stir the often deeply hidden lovingness
and gentleness of his nature. They have a social and domestic aspect to
which no one with a human heart can be quite indifferent. Few can doat
upon the distant flowers of the sky as many of us doat upon the flowers
at our feet. The stars are wholly independent of man: not so the sweet
children of Flora. We tend upon and cherish them with a parental pride.
They seem especially meant for man and man for them. They often need his
kindest nursing. We place them with guardian hand in the brightest light
and the most wholesome air. We quench with liquid life their sun-raised
thirst, or shelter them from the wintry blast, or prepare and enrich
their nutritious beds. As they pine or prosper they agitate us with
tender anxieties, or thrill us with exultation and delight. In the
little plot of ground that fronts an English cottage the flowers are
like members of the household. They are of the same family. They are
almost as lovely as the children that play with them--though their happy
human associates may be amongst
The sweetest things that ever grew
Beside a human door.
The Greeks called flowers the Festival of the eye: and so they are:
but they are something else, and something better.
A flower is not a flower alone,
A thousand sanctities invest it.
Flowers not only touch the heart; they also elevate the soul. They bind
us not entirely to earth; though they make earth delightful. They
attract our thoughts downward to the richly embroidered ground only to
raise them up again to heaven. If the stars are the scriptures of the
sky, the flowers are the scriptures of the earth. If the stars are a
more glorious revelation of the Creator's majesty and might, the flowers
are at least as sweet a revelation of his gentler attributes. It has
been observed that
An undevout astronomer is mad.
The same thing may be said of an irreverent floriculturist, and with
equal truth--perhaps indeed with greater. For the astronomer, in some
cases, may be hard and cold, from indulging in habits of thought too
exclusively mathematical. But the true lover of flowers has always
something gentle and genial in his nature. He never looks upon his
floral-family without a sweetened smile upon his face and a softened
feeling in his heart; unless his temperament be strangely changed and
his mind disordered. The poets, who, speaking generally, are
constitutionally religious, are always delighted readers of the flower-
illumined pages of the book of nature. One of these disciples of Flora
earnestly exclaims:
Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining
Far from all voice of teachers and divines,
My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining
Priests, sermons, shrines
The popular little preachers of the field and garden, with their lovely
faces, and angelic language--sending the while such ambrosial incense up
to heaven--insinuate the sweetest truths into the human heart. They lead
us to the delightful conclusion that beauty is in the list of the
utilities--that the Divine Artist himself is a lover of loveliness--
that he has communicated a taste for it to his creatures and most
lavishly provided for its gratification.
Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts then hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the sea side sands
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
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