_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.