Part 7

“Henry Ward Beecher says, ‘The only way to exterminate the Canada thistle is to plant it for a crop, and propose to make money out of it. Then worms will gnaw it, bugs will bite it, beetles will bore it, aphides will suck it, birds will peck it, heat will scorch it, rains will drown it, and mildew and blight will cover it.’”

And now guess, if you can, what harm lies couched in these words. Put on your spectacles. Nothing wrong, do you say? O, but there is! You, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, and can’t see heresy! Fie, for shame, to be beaten by a Dutchman! Now, let our Intelligencer’s man express himself. The italics are his, not mine:—

“These bugs, beetles, aphides, heat, rain, and mildew are the messengers of God. If they are sent, they are on an errand for God! Now, if the above extract has a point, it is that when mankind plant a crop of any kind of grain or seed, God takes a malicious pleasure in defeating such schemes.”

This is exquisite! If mildew attacks my grape-vines, it is on an errand for God, and if I sprinkle it with sulphur as a remedy, I put brimstone into the very face of God’s messenger! When it rains—is not rain, too, God’s messenger?—does “Puritan” dare to open a blasphemous umbrella, and push it up in the very face of this divine messenger? When a child is attacked by one of “God’s messengers”—measles, canker-rash, dysentery, scarlet-fever—would it be a very great sin to send for a doctor on purpose that he might resist these divine messengers? There are insects which attack men, against one of which we set up combs, and against another sulphur. “Nay,” says Puritan. “If they are sent, they are on an errand for God.”

“Puritan” goes on:—

“Such a sentiment is far deeper in its tone than a mere murmur. Especially as Mr. Beecher’s farm at Fishkill is well known to be cultivated with reference to making money.”

Yes, we confess it. A “murmur” very imperfectly expresses our feelings as we dig at a Canada thistle, or squirt whale-oil soapsuds over a myriad of “Puritan’s” divine messengers, called aphides. A grumble would not be too strong a word to use on such occasions. Nay, the reverend gentleman has been known to say, in a paroxysm of horticultural impiety, “I wish every rose-bug on the place was dead!” which must seem to “Puritan” a piece of horrible depravity.

I did not before know that I had a farm in Fishkill. My experience with the farm at Peekskill, “which is well known to be cultivated with reference to making money,” is such, that if it be true that I own another farm at Fishkill, I shall consider myself on the straight road to the poor-house!

But there is more coming:—

“The charge of the reverend gentleman amounts to this,—that whenever he attempts to raise a crop of wheat, corn, flax, or grass, God sends beetles, bugs, aphides, heat, rain, and mildew, to blast his designs.

“This has the ring of Cain when his sacrifice was rejected. That primeval sinner vented his anger towards God on his holy brother. Mr. H. W. Beecher vents his anger towards the real cause of his mildewed crops, by charging the innocent instruments in their Maker’s hand. If this is not blasphemy in one as well informed as Mr. Beecher is, we have read his words amiss. “PURITAN.”

I may have been mistaken, but it has seemed to me that every crop that I have ever attempted to raise has had swarms of “messengers” sent upon it. But, until now, I never suspected that God sent them, in any other sense than that in which he sends diseases, famines, tyrants, literary “Puritans,” and all other evils which afflict humanity.

But what is to be done about this matter? If it be “blasphemy” to speak against bugs, it can be little short of sacrilege to smash them. Here have I been, in the blindness of unrepented depravity, slaughtering millions of “the messengers of God” called aphides! I have ruthlessly slain those other angelic “messengers” called mosquitoes, who came singing to me with misplaced confidence. I have even railed at fleas, and spoken irreverently of gnats. I have gone further: on a sultry summer’s day, after dinner, I have turned out of my room every one of those “messengers of God” which wicked boys call flies—every one but one, I mean; and, just as the sounds grew faint and sight dim, and I was sinking into that entrancing experience, the first virgin moments of slumber, an affectionate fly settled on my nose, ran down to kiss my lips, and, like a traveler on a new continent, set about exploring my whole face. Instead of greeting this “messenger” divine as “Puritan” would, I confess to a lively vexation. And if speaking of flies in a very disrespectful manner is blasphemous, I must confess to the charge!

But soberly, Mr. Bonner, is it not pitiable to have among us men pretending to intelligence, who bring religion into discredit by such hopeless stupidity?

In the velocipede rinks, besides those for speed, premiums are offered to the men who can ride the slowest. “Puritan” should enter himself. If anybody can go slower, he must be a marvel of torpidity.

NATURAL ORDER OF FLOWERS.

May 21st.

He must have an artist’s eye for color and form who can arrange a hundred flowers as tastefully, in any other way, as by strolling through a garden, picking here one and there one, and adding them to the bouquet in the accidental order in which they chance to come. Thus we see every summer day the fair lady coming in from the breezy side-hill with gorgeous colors, and most witching effects. If only she could be changed to alabaster, was ever a finer show of flowers in so fine a vase? But instead, allowed to remain as they were gathered, the flowers are laid upon the table, divided and rearranged on some principle of taste, I know not what, but never regain that charming naturalness and grace which they first had.

As to the bouquets put up for market, the less said about them the better. They are mere pillories in which, like innocent children put into the stocks, flowers are punished! Squeezed, tied on sticks, formal and pedantic, the flowers lose their rare charms, their delicacy, their individuality, their exquisite variety of form, every element of floral beauty except color. They are used as mere pigments. They are poor studies in color. There are few who really know anything about flowers by their finer qualities. The elder Park—who committed the capital crime of leaving Brooklyn and going back to Scotland to live—loved flowers after the true sort. We remember one day going to his green-house in Amity Street, and after a world of talk about all sorts of things, and looking over all his azaleas, camellias, laurustinus, and what not, he drew us bashfully into a side apartment, and with the diffidence of a girl, said, pointing to an exquisite little fern hardly so large as our forefinger, growing in the border under some orange-plants, “There, I should not dare to tell anybody but you that I have taken more real pleasure in that one little thing than in all the whole establishment.” We perfectly understood him. The fern was of the most delicate sort. It seemed to hover between form and spirit,—if there be such a thing as soul in plant-life. All around it were large and vigorous plants growing lush and stalwart. This dainty little fairy fern appealed to the child-loving side of human nature, to the unworldly and uncommercial faculties. We always respected Park the better for this weakness. No man can have such a sentiment for flowers, who has not in him feelings as fresh and delicate as the flowers which he admires.

But with what complacency can such a one look upon the merchandise of flowers which is exhibited at every party, every wedding, every vulgar jam of rich people, who torment themselves through untimely hours for the sake of tormenting their host?

Look at the atrocious bridal bouquets! The bride, the bridesmaids, come forth bearing each a huge melange of orange-blossoms and rosebuds, wedged together into a pyramidal wart of flowers! If, instead, the bride were to issue forth bearing in her hand a sprig of orange-blossoms just as it grew, just as it was plucked from the branch, or two or three simple rosebuds on the one stem, loosely clustered, and with their own fresh green leaves, or a simple white lily, would not every one feel how superior flowers were for such an occasion, in their own simplicity and individuality, than when, as generally happens, they are smothered up in an artificial heap, in which all naturalness is utterly lost?

A single blossom of carnation with a geranium leaf; an exquisite saffrano rosebud just beginning to open, with a fresh leaf from its own bush for company; a stem of mignonette, girt round with a dozen fragrant blue violets; a long sprig of mauvandia-vine, with its charming blue bells, hanging from a tall wineglass, or carelessly trailing round it,—these, and such little things, confer a pleasure on those who have a sensitive eye for grace and simplicity, which nothing else can.

We would not be understood as objecting to all masses of flowers, nor to large combinations. For coarser and more distant effects, they are permissible. But even then, the more they can be made to have a loose, airy, open habit, the finer will be their effect.

But first, simplicity, naturalness, singleness, and individualism in flowers; afterward and inferior, though permissible, artificial structures and combinations.

XI.

ROSES.

July 2d.

June is the paradise of roses. In this month they break forth into unparalleled splendor. All Rosedom is out in holiday apparel; and roses white and black, green and pink, scarlet, crimson, and yellow, striped and mottled, double and single, in clusters and solitary, moss-roses, damask-roses, Noisette, perpetual, Bourbon, China, tea, musk, and all other tribes and names, hang in exuberant beauty. The air is full of their fragrance. The eye can turn nowhere that it is not attracted to a glowing bush of roses. At first one is exhilarated. He wanders from bush to bush and cuts the finest specimens, until there is no room or dish for more. So many roses, and so few to see them! What would not people shut up in cities give to see such luxuriance of beauty! How strange that those who have ground do not gather about them these favorites of every sense! The air and soil that nourish nettles and thistles, plantain and dock, would bring forth roses with equal kindness. There is enough ground wasted around country houses to furnish root-room for a hundred kinds of roses, without detriment either to fruit trees or ornamental shade trees. Men admire them when they see them in a friend’s house; they are always pleased to receive a lapful as a present to their wife or mother or daughter; but it does not enter their head that they, too, might have roses to give away.