In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have you not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers?
Surely with mankind the appreciation of flowers must have been coeval with the poetry of love.Where better than in a flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, fragrant because of its silence, can we image the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended the brute.He became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature.He entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless.
In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them.We wed and christen with flowers.
We dare not die without them.We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum.We have even attempted to speak in the language of flowers.How could we live without them?
It frightens on to conceive of a world bereft of their presence.
What solace do they not bring to the bedside of the sick, what a light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits? Their serene tenderness restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes.When we are laid low in the dust it is they who linger in sorrow over our graves.
Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above the brute.Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth.It has been said that a man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal.Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never ceased to be an animal.Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires.Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves.Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him.We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us.What atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement!
Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the gentle breezes of summer.To-morrow a ruthless hand will close around your throats.You will be wrenched, torn asunder limb by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes.The wretch, she may be passing fair.She may say how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood.Tell me, will this be kindness? It may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one who would not dare to look you in the face were you a man.It may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life.
Flowers, if you were in the land of the Mikado, you might some time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a tiny saw.
He would call himself a Master of Flowers.He would claim the rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate him, for you know a doctor always seeks to prolong the troubles of his victims.
He would cut, bend, and twist you into those impossible positions which he thinks it proper that you should assume.He would contort your muscles and dislocate your bones like any osteopath.
He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust wires into you to assist your circulation.He would diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol.Boiling water would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint.
It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or more weeks longer than would have been possible without his treatment.Would you not have preferred to have been killed at once when you were first captured? What were the crimes you must have committed during your past incarnation to warrant such punishment in this?
The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more appalling than the way they are treated by Eastern Flower Masters.The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and America, to be thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous;if strung together they might garland a continent.Beside this utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes insignificant.He, at least, respects the economy of nature, selects his victims with careful foresight, and after death does honour to their remains.In the West the display of flowers seems to be a part of the pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment.
Whither do they all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over?
Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly flung upon a dung heap.
Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless?
Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay.The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach.Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer.If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears.We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours.
Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human.Perhaps they have migrated to heaven.
