"And without thorn the rose,"[129]
It is pleasant to see flowers plucked by the fairest fingers for some
elegant or worthy purpose, but it is not pleasant to see them _wasted_.
Some people pluck them wantonly, and then fling them away and litter the
garden walks with them. Some idle coxcombs, vain
Of the nice conduct of a clouded cane,
amuse themselves with switching off their lovely heads. "That's
villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it."
Lander says
And 'tis my wish, and over was my way,
To let all flowers live freely, and so die.
Here is a poetical petitioner against a needless destruction of the
little tenants of the parterre.
Oh, spare my flower, my gentle flower,
The slender creature of a day,
Let it bloom out its little hour,
And pass away.
So soon its fleeting charms must lie
Decayed, unnoticed and o'erthrown,
Oh, hasten not its destiny,
Too like thine own.
_Lyte_.
Those who pluck flowers needlessly and thoughtlessly should be told that
other people like to see them flourish, and that it is as well for every
one to bear in mind the beautiful remark of Lord Bacon that "the breath
of flowers is far sweeter in the air than in the hand; for in the air it
comes and goes like the warbling of music."
The British portion of this community allow their exile to be much more
dull and dreary than it need be, by neglecting to cultivate their
gardens, and leaving them entirely to the taste and industry of the
_malee_. I never feel half so much inclined to envy the great men of
this now crowded city the possession of vast but gardenless mansions,
(partly blocked up by those of their neighbours,) as I do to felicitate
the owner of some humbler but more airy and wholesome dwelling in the
suburbs, when the well-sized grounds attached to it have been touched
into beauty by the tasteful hand of a lover of flowers.
But generally speaking my countrymen in most parts of India allow their
grounds to remain in a state which I cannot help characterizing as
disreputable. It is amazing how men or women accustomed to English modes
of life can reconcile themselves to that air of neglect, disorder, and
discomfort which most of their "compounds" here exhibit.
It would afford me peculiar gratification to find this book read with
interest by my Hindu friends, (for whom, chiefly, it has been written,)
and to hear that it has induced some of them to pay more attention to
the ornamental cultivation of their grounds; for it would be difficult
to confer upon them a greater blessing than a taste for the innocent and
elegant pleasures of the FLOWER-GARDEN.