FLOWER OF ALL TIME.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 21 February 1925, Page 16

FLOWER OF ALL TIME.

THE ROSE IX HISTORY. it is on record that Xero spent £30,000 on roses for one feast. The floor of the banquet hall was strewn with petals. One shudders at read- j ing it. M hat a sacrilege to compel; sweet innocence into such company! All the perfumes of Araby did not sweeten i.ady Aiacheth'e little hand, and all the "roses of Italy would not make Nero’s banquet fragrant. What Ones appear is that roses were much esteemed and also very costly. it uses have nourished in all civilised lands and figure constantly in history (remarks a contributor to the Melbourne Age), in Shakespeare’s Henry VI., which some critics call the worst of the historical plays and assert that ne never wrote, tne scene in which the red and white roses are plucked is bo emphatically superior that the mind of Stiakepeare flames out in every line. Argument and counter-argument sparkling with retort and incomparable juit betrav the master hand —

idautnganet: Your cheeks do counterfeit our roses, for pale they look with fear. Somerset: ’Tis not for fear. but anger, that thy cheeks blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses. And so the brawl in the temple garden sent between the red rose and the white a thousand souls to death and deadly night, and innocent flowers became' the symbols of warring ambitions and were borne to fields of blood. . Who knows but in the garden of Eden the roses saw the creation o£ Eve and felt her sweet breath upon their lovely petals! And who knows but that in these idyllic days the wide-eyed roses saw the Lord God walking in the cool of the evening in converse with his creatures! Perhaps the fragrance which clings to the beloved flower is a reminiscence of the golden age, a something that has survived the ruin of our race.

There is scarcely a poet in ancient or modern days but must needs plant the rose in his pages to give them perfume. Tasso,’'Homer, Omar, Sappho, end the Bible itself bids us inhale the fragrance. In literature there are more allusions to it than to any other pjant, for how can a man be a poet and be silent about the rose? Sappho, who flourished 600 8.C.. speaks not only for herself, but claims to be the mouthniece of the race—

The rose (mankind will all agree), The rose the queen of flowers should be. Roses adorned the shield of Achilles and the helm of’Hector. But in truth some of the loveliest compliments to the rose are modern. Wdberforce declared roses to he God’s smiles, George MacDonald speaks of God’s rose-thoughts, and Scott, the picturesque and gracious, save — The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew. And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears. •

It is Christina Rossetti who' dwells most upon the quickly fading loveliness of the rose. It opened at the matin hour and fell at evensong. It is she, too, who sees that though in the dewy morn the rose is fair ite loveliness is born upon a thorn. How melancholy and truly Irish is Moore’s lament over the last rose of summer! But _the„ sum of the- whole matter is furnished by Shakespeare, who utters the English thought in the English way: “Of all flowers methinks the rose is best.”

Perhaps the most astonishing reference to flowers is furnished in an address to the British Association some years ago by the president of the Linnean Society. Within the mummy wrappings of Seti I. and Rameses 11. uere found 50 species of the plant life of the period of the Pharaohs of the lime of Moses. Being hermetically sealed these specimens were perfectly preserved, and after being placed in warm water were found to be quite satisfactory for the purposes of science. The colours of the flowers woven into the garlands could be ascertained, so wonderful was their state of preservation. The peculiarities of living plants were all detected in those treasuies of the tomb, and so some botanists maintain that “species must be dealt with as fixed quantities.’’

Authorities of to-day incline to the opinion that there are only about 40 distinct species. The rest are intermediate forms or connecting links. Of the 40 species Great Britain claims 16, and quite half of all species come from Asia. Thousands- of varieties have been produced during the past 50 years. It is inexpressibly touching to think that through all the ages of the past and the coming and going of milleniums of summers the old familiar faces of the flowers have gladdened successive generations. The dog rose is the mother of all roses, and there is a saying that wherever the wild rose grows the cultivated rose will prosper. The rose is not only a public institution, but the undying glory and delight of the human race.

It has been permanently associated in the human mind \vith beauty, and as one might expect has assisted in raising questions which have an interest far beyond what is merely academic. Solomon in all his glory was a poor affair compared with a rose. The limited life of the favourite flower and its ephemeral destiny awaken in us a feeling we cannot easily dispel. Darwin and others suggest a relation between beauty and utility. Beauty secures protection for the species, and therefore its continuous propagation. As a simple downright fact that is to be admitted, but when it is dogmatically affirmed that beyond this there is nothing the thoughtful mind rises in wild rebellion. Why the propagation, why the permanence of beauty? These questions are more fixed in Uis than qualities are in the species. Flowers beautify the earth and delight man. and if they do more for man than for the bees that find food in them, if they minister more to conscious intelligence than to the lower forms of life, the inference is obvious. Beauty in the - rose implies a sense of beauty in the creative"force, which is but another way of saying that the creative force is personal. A rose is a mystery, and nobody felt it so much or refers to it so divinely as Wordsworth. The .meanest flower gave him thoughts too deep for tears. \ nd in one never-to-be-forgotten phrase he has uttered what millions have felt—

And ’tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. Is this pantheism ? And are we to - nderstand that self-consciousness runs through the vegetable world and all the forms of life inferior to man? Pave we not in common with children wished that dogs could talk, a wish which carries implications of a nature not suspected? There are many of ns who in nresence of a glorious rose have f'dt as "if some injustice lay upon that lovely form, condemning it to everlasting ignorance of the joy it was giving to the world. It seems to he yearning to sneak and often on the point of opening its dewy lips. No message from Mars would be so intensely interesting as ,a solitary sentence from r> Madame Abel Chatenay or a whisper from a Madame Edward Herriot. And mayhap in the golden age, when the music of the spheres awaken, we may find the roses quiring to the youngeyed cherubim.