A fresh bouquet of mid-summer roses stands upon the table before us. The
morning dew-drops hang, heavy as emeralds, upon branch and bud; soft and
rich colors delight the eye with their lovely hues, and that rose-odor,
which, every one feels, has not lost anything of its divine sweetness
since the first day the flower bloomed in that heaven-garden of Eve,
fills the air.
If there is any proof necessary that the rose has a diviner origin than
all other flowers, it is easily found in the unvarying constancy of
mankind to it for so many long centuries. Fashions there have been
innumerable in ornaments of all sorts, from simple sea-shells worn by
Nubian maidens, to costly diamonds, that heighten the charms of the
proudest court beauties; silver, gold, precious stones, all have their
season of favor, and then again sink into comparative neglect, but a
simple rose has ever been and will ever be the favorite emblem and
adornment of beauty.
Now the secret of this perpetual and undying charm about the rose is not
to be found in its color; there are bright lilies, and gay tiger
flowers, and dazzling air-plants, far more rich and vivid; it is not
alone in fragrance, for there are violets and jasmines with “more
passionate sighs of sweetness;” it is not in foliage, for there are
laurels and magnolias with leaves of richer and more glossy green. Where
then does this secret of the world’s six thousand years’ homage lie? In
its being a type of infinity.
Of infinity! says our most innocent maiden reader, who loves roses
without caring why, and who does not love infinity, because she does not
understand it. Roses a type of infinity! says our theological reader,
who has been in the habit of considering all flowers of the field, aye,
and of the garden too, as emblems of the short-lived race of man. Yes,
we have said it, the secret of the world’s devotion to the rose, of her
being the queen of flowers by acclamation and forever, is that the rose
is a type of infinity.
The rose is a type of infinity because there is no limit to the variety
and beauty of the forms and colors which it assumes. From the wild rose,
whose sweet, faint odor is wasted in the depths of the silent wood, or
the Eglantine, whose wreaths of fresh sweet blossoms embroider even the
dusty road sides, to that most perfect, full, rounded, and odorous
flower that swells the heart of the florist as he beholds its richness
and symmetry; what an innumerable range of shades, and forms, and
colors. And indeed, with the hundreds and thousands of roses of modern
times, we still know little of all the varied shapes which the plant has
taken in by-gone days, and which have perished with the thousand other
refinements and luxuries of the nations who cultivated and enjoyed them.
All this variety of form, so far from destroying the admiration of
mankind for the rose, actually increases it. This very character of
infinity in its beauty makes it the symbol and interpreter of the
affections of all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. The poet, amid
all the perfections of the parterre, still prefers the scent of the
woods, and the air of freedom about the original blossom, and says,
“Far dearer to me is the wild flower that grows
Unseen by the brook where in shadow it flows.”
The Cabbage Rose, that perfect emblem of healthful rural life, is the
pride of the cottager; the daily China Rose, which cheats the window of
the crowded city of its gloom, is the joy of the daughter of the
humblest day laborer; the delicate and odorous Tea Rose, fated to be
admired and to languish in the drawing room or the boudoir, wins its
place in the affections of those of most cultivated and fastidious
tastes; while the moss rose unites the admiration of all classes, coming
in as it does with its last added charm to complete the circle of
perfection.
Then there is the infinity of associations which float like rich incense
about the rose, and that after all bind it most strongly to us, for they
represent the accumulated wealth of joys and sorrows which has become so
inseparably connected with it in the human heart.
“What were life without a rose?”
seems to many, doubtless, to be a most extravagant apostrophe; yet if
this single flower were to be struck out of existence, what a chasm in
the language of the heart would be found without it. What would the
poets do? They would find their finest emblem of female loveliness
stolen away. Listen, for instance, to old Beaumont and Fletcher:
“Of all flowers,
Methinks a rose is best;
It is the very emblem of a maid;
For when the west wind courts her gently,
How modestly she blows and paints the sun
With her chaste blushes. When the north wind comes near her,
Rude and impatient, then, like chastity,
She locks her beauties in her bud again,
And leaves him to base briars.”
What would the lovers do? What tender confessions hitherto uttered by
fair half-open buds and bouquets, more eloquent of passion than the
Nouvelle Heloise, would have to be stammered forth in miserable clumsy
words; how many doleful suits would be lost; how many bashful hearts
would never venture; how many rash and reckless adventurers would be
shipwrecked, if the tender and expressive language of the rose were all
suddenly lost and blotted out. What could we place in the hands of
childhood to mirror back its innocent expression so truly? What blossoms
could bloom on the breast of the youthful beauty so typical of the
infinity of hope, and sweet thoughts that lie folded up in her own
heart, as fair young rose buds? What wreath could so lovingly encircle
the head of the bride, as that of white roses, full of purity and grace?
And, last of all, what blossoms, so expressive of human affections,
could we find at the bier, to take the place of the rose? the rose,
sacred to this purpose for so many ages, and with so many nations:
“Because its breath
Is rich beyond the rest; and when it dies
It doth bequeath a charm to sweeten death.”
—————