A riot of scarlet on gold, the red poppy of our native fields tosses
heavy tresses with gipsy _abandon;_ her sister of the sea-shore is
golden, a yellow blossom that loves the keen salt savour of the spray.
Of another hue is the poppy of history, of romance, of the muse. White
as the stark death-shroud, pallid as the cheeks of that queen of a
silent land whose temples she languorously crowns, ghost-like beside
her fuller-blooded kin, she droops dream-laden, _Papaver somniferum,_
the poppy of the magic juice of oblivion. In the royal plenitude of
summer, the scarlet blooms will sometimes seem but a red cry from earth
in memory of the many dews of battle that have drenched these acres in
years gone by, for little end but that these same “bubbles of blood”
might glow to-day; the yellow flower does but hint of the gold that has
dashed a thousand wrecks at her feet around these shores: for happier
suggestion we must turn to her of the pallid petals, our white Lady of
Consolation. Fitting hue to typify the crowning blessing of
forgetfulness! Too often the sable robes of night dissemble
sleeplessness, remorse, regret, self-questioning. Let black, then,
rather stand for hideous memory: white for blessed blank oblivion,
happiest gift of the gods! For who, indeed, can say that the record of
his life is not crowded with failure and mistake, stained with its
petty cruelties of youth, its meannesses and follies of later years,
all which storm and clamour incessantly at the gates of memory,
refusing to be shut out? Leave us alone, O gods, to remember our
felicities, our successes: only aid us, ye who recall no gifts, aptly
and discreetly to forget.
Discreetly, we say; for it is a tactful forgetfulness that makes for
happiness. In the minor matter, for instance, of small money
obligations, that shortness of memory which the school of Professors
Panurge and Falstaff rashly praises, may often betray into some
unfortunate allusion or reference to the subject which shall pain the
delicate feelings of the obliger; or, if he be of coarser clay, shall
lead him in his anger to express himself with unseemliness, and thereby
to do violence to his mental tranquillity, in which alone, as Marcus
Aurelius teacheth, lieth the perfection of moral character. This is to
be a stumbling-block and an offence against the brethren. It is better
to keep just memory enough to avoid such hidden rocks and shoals; in
which thing Mr Swiveller is our great exemplar, whose mental map of
London was a chart wherein every creditor was carefully “buoyed.”
The wise man prays, we are told, for a good digestion: let us add to
the prayer—and a bad memory. Truly we are sometimes tempted to think
that we are the only ones cursed with this corroding canker. Our
friends, we can swear, have all, without exception, atrocious memories;
why is ours alone so hideously vital? Yet this isolation must be
imaginary; for even as we engage in this selfish moan for help in our
own petty case, we are moved to add a word for certain others who,
meaning no ill, unthinkingly go about to add to humanity’s already
heavy load of suffering. How much needless misery is caused in this
world by the reckless “recollections” of dramatic and other
celebrities? You gods, in lending ear to our prayer, remember too,
above all other sorts and conditions of men, these our poor erring
brothers and sisters, the sometime _sommités_ of Mummerdom!
Moments there are, it is true, when this traitor spirit tricks you:
when some subtle scent, some broken notes of an old song, nay, even
some touch of a fresher air on your cheeks at night—a breath of _“le
vent qui vient à travers la montagne”_—have power to ravish, to catch
you back to the blissful days when you trod the one authentic Paradise.
Moments only, alas! Then the evil crowd rushes in again, howls in the
sacred grove, tramples down and defiles the happy garden; and once more
you cry to Our Lady of Sleep, crowned of the white poppy. And you envy
your dog who, for full discharge of a present benefaction having wagged
you a hearty, expressive tail, will then pursue it gently round the
hearth-rug till, in restful coil, he reaches it at last, and oblivion
with it; every one of his half-dozen diurnal sleeps being in truth a
royal amnesty.
But whose the hand that shall reach us the herb of healing? Perdita
blesses every guest at the shearing with a handful of blossom; but this
gift is not to be asked of her whose best wish to her friends is “grace
and remembrance.” The fair Ophelia, rather: nay, for as a nursling she
hugs her grief, and for her the memory of the past is a “sorrow’s crown
of sorrow.” What flowers are these her pale hand offers? “There’s
pansies, that’s for thoughts!” For me rather, O dear Ophelia, the white
poppy of forgetfulness.