"I believe" says Richter "the flower clock of Linnaeus, in Upsal
(_Horologium Florae_) whose wheels are the sun and earth, and whose
index-figures are flowers, of which one always awakens and opens later
than another, was what secretly suggested my conception of the human
clock.
I formerly occupied two chambers in Scheeraw, in the middle of the
market place: from the front room I overlooked the whole market-place
and the royal buildings and from the back one, the botanical garden.
Whoever now dwells in these two rooms possesses an excellent harmony,
arranged to his hand, between the flower clock in the garden and the
human clock in the marketplace. At three o'clock in the morning, the
yellow meadow goats-beard opens; and brides awake, and the stable-boy
begins to rattle and feed the horses beneath the lodger. At four o'clock
the little hawk weed awakes, choristers going to the Cathedral who are
clocks with chimes, and the bakers. At five, kitchen maids, dairy maids,
and butter-cups awake. At six, the sow-thistle and cooks. At seven
o'clock many of the Ladies' maids are awake in the Palace, the Chicory
in my botanical garden, and some tradesmen. At eight o'clock all the
colleges awake and the little mouse-ear. At nine o'clock, the female
nobility already begin to stir; the marigold, and even many young
ladies, who have come from the country on a visit, begin to look out of
their windows. Between ten and eleven o'clock the Court Ladies and the
whole staff of Lords of the Bed-chamber, the green colewort and the
Alpine dandelion, and the reader of the Princess rouse themselves out of
their morning sleep; and the whole Palace, considering that the morning
sun gleams so brightly to-day from the lofty sky through the coloured
silk curtains, curtails a little of its slumber.
At twelve o'clock, the Prince: at one, his wife and the carnation have
their eyes open in their flower vase. What awakes late in the afternoon
at four o'clock is only the red-hawkweed, and the night watchman as
cuckoo-clock, and these two only tell the time as evening-clocks and
moon-clocks.
From the eyes of the unfortunate man, who like the jalap plant
(Mirabilia jalapa), first opens them at five o'clock, we will turn our
own in pity aside. It is a rich man who only exchanges the fever fancies
of being pinched with hot pincers for waking pains.
I could never know when it was two o'clock, because at that time,
together with a thousand other stout gentlemen and the yellow mouse-ear,
I always fell asleep; but at three o'clock in the afternoon, and at
three in the morning, I awoke as regularly as though I was a repeater.
Thus we mortals may be a flower-clock for higher beings, when our
flower-leaves close upon our last bed; or sand clocks, when the sand of
our life is so run down that it is renewed in the other world; or
picture-clocks because, when our death-bell here below strikes and
rings, our image steps forth, from its case into the next world.
On each event of the kind, when seventy years of human life have passed
away, they may perhaps say, what! another hour already gone! how the
time flies!"--_From Balfour's Phyto-Theology_.
Some of the natives of India who possess extensive estates might think
it worth their while to plant a LABYRINTH for the amusement of their
friends. I therefore give a plan of one from London's _Arboretum et
Fruticetum Britannicum_. It would not be advisable to occupy much of a
limited estate in a toy of this nature; but where the ground required
for it can be easily spared or would otherwise be wasted, there could be
no objection to adding this sort of amusement to the very many others
that may be included in a pleasure ground. The plan here given,
resembles the labyrinth at Hampton Court. The hedges should be a little
above a man's height and the paths should be just wide enough for two
persons abreast. The ground should be kept scrupulously clean and well
rolled and the hedges well trimmed, or in this country the labyrinth
would soon be damp and unwholesome, especially in the rains. To prevent
its affording a place of refuge and concealment for snakes and other
reptiles, the gardener should cut off all young shoots and leaves within
half a foot of the ground. The centre building should be a tasteful
summer-house, in which people might read or smoke or take refreshments.
To make the labyrinth still more intricate Mr. Loudon suggests that
stop-hedges might be introduced across the path, at different places, as
indicated in the figure by dotted lines.[110]
[Illustration of A GARDEN LABYRINTH with a scale in feet.]
Of strictly Oriental trees and shrubs and flowers, perhaps the majority
of Anglo Indians think with much less enthusiasm than of the common
weeds of England. The remembrance of the simplest wild flower of their
native fields will make them look with perfect indifference on the
decorations of an Indian Garden. This is in no degree surprizing. Yet
nature is lovely in all lands.
Indian scenery has not been so much the subject of description in either
prose or verse as it deserves, but some two or three of our Anglo-Indian
authors have touched upon it. Here is a pleasant and truthful passage
from an article entitled "_A Morning Walk in India_," written by the
late Mr. Lawson, the Missionary, a truly good and a highly gifted man:--
"The rounded clumps that afford the deepest shade, are formed by the
mangoe, the banian, and the cotton trees. At the verge of this deep-green
forest are to be seen the long and slender hosts of the betle and
cocoanut trees; and the grey bark of their trunks, as they catch the
light of the morning, is in clear relief from the richness of the
back-ground. These as they wave their feathery tops, add much to the
picturesque interest of the straw-built hovels beneath them, which are
variegated with every tinge to be found amongst the browns and yellows,
according to the respective periods of their construction. Some of them
are enveloped in blue smoke, which oozes through every interstice of the
thatch, and spreads itself, like a cloud hovering over these frail
habitations, or moves slowly along, like a strata of vapour not far from
the ground, as though too heavy to ascend, and loses itself in the thin
air, so inspiring to all who have courage to leave their beds and enjoy
it. The champa tree forms a beautiful object in this jungle. It may be
recognized immediately from the surrounding scenery. It has always been
a favourite with me. I suppose most persons, at times, have been
unaccountably attracted by an object comparatively trifling in itself.
There are also particular seasons, when the mind is susceptible of
peculiar impressions, and the moments of happy, careless youth, rush
upon the imagination with a thousand tender feelings. There are few that
do not recollect with what pleasure they have grasped a bunch of wild
flowers, when, in the days of their childhood, the languor of a
lingering fever has prevented them for some weary months from enjoying
that chief of all the pleasures of a robust English boy, a ramble
through the fields, where every tree, and bush, and hillock, and
blossom, are endeared to him, because, next to a mother's caresses, they
were the first things in the world upon which he opened his eyes, and,
doubtless, the first which gave him those indescribable feelings of
fairy pleasure, which even in his dreams were excited; while the
coloured clouds of heaven, the golden sunshine of a landscape, the fresh
nosegay of dog-roses and early daisies, and the sounds of busy
whispering trees and tinkling brooks presented to the sleeping child all
the pure pleasure of his waking moments. And who is there here that does
not sometimes recal some of those feelings which were his solace perhaps
thirty years ago? Should I be wrong, were I to say that even, at his
desk, amid all the excitements and anxieties of commercial pursuits, the
weary Calcutta merchant has been lulled into a sort of pensive
reminiscence of the past, and, with his pen placed between his lips and
his fevered forehead leaning upon his hand, has felt his heart bound at
some vivid picture rising upon his imagination. The forms of a fond
mother, and an almost angel-looking sister, have been so strongly
conjured up with the scenes of his boyish days, that the pen has been
unceremoniously dashed to the ground, and 'I will go home' was the sigh
that heaved from a bosom full of kindness and English feeling; while, as
the dream vanished, plain truth told its tale, and the man of commerce
is still to be seen at his desk, pale, and getting into years and
perhaps less desirous than ever of winding up his concern. No wonder!
because the dearest ties of his heart have been broken, and those who
were the charm of home have gone down to the cold grave, the home of
all. Why then should he revisit his native place? What is the cottage of
his birth to him? What charms has the village now for the gentleman just
arrived from India? Every well remembered object of nature, seen after a
lapse of twenty years, would only serve to renew a host of buried,
painful feelings. Every visit to the house of a surviving neighbour
would but bring to mind some melancholy incident; for into what house
could he enter, to idle away an hour, without seeing some wreck of his
own family, such as a venerable clock, once so loved for the painted
moon that waxed and waned to the astonishment of the gazer, or some
favorite ancient chair, edged so nobly with rows of brass nails,
--but perforated sore, and dull'd in holes
By worms voracious, eating through and through.
These are little things, but they are objects which will live in his
memory to the latest day of his life, and with which are associated in
his mind the dearest feelings and thoughts of his happiest hours."