Chapter 11

The _Beara_, strictly speaking, is a Mahomedan festival. Some of the lower orders of the Hindus of the NW Provinces, who have borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, celebrate the _Beara_. But it is not observed by the Hindus of Bengal, who have a festival of their own, similar to the _Beara_. It takes place on the evening of the _Saraswati Poojah_, when a small piece of the bark of the Plantain Tree is fitted out with all the necessary accompaniments of a boat, and is launched in a private tank with a lamp. The custom is confined to the women who follow it in their own house or in the same neighbourhood. It is called the _Sooa Dooa Breta_.

Yours truly,

* * * * *

Mrs. Carshore it would seem is partly right and partly wrong. She is right in calling the _Beara_ a _Moslem_ Festival. It is so; but we have the testimony of Horace Hayman Wilson to the fact that _Hindu maids and matrons also launch their lamps upon the river_. My Hindu friend acknowledges that his countrymen in the North West Provinces have borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, and though he is not aware of it, it may yet be the case, that some of the Hindus of _Bengal_, as elsewhere, have done the same, and that they set lamps afloat upon the stream to discover by their continued burning or sudden extinction the fate of some absent friend or lover. I find very few Natives who are able to give me any exact and positive information concerning their own national customs. In their explanations of such matters they differ in the most extraordinary manner amongst themselves. Two most respectable and intelligent Native gentlemen who were proposing to lay out their grounds under my directions, told me that I must not cut down a single cocoa-nut tree, as it would be dreadful sacrilege--equal to cutting the throats of seven brahmins! Another equally respectable and intelligent Native friend, when I mentioned the fact, threw himself back in his chair to give vent to a hearty laugh. When he had recovered himself a little from this risible convulsion he observed that his father and his grandfather had cut down cocoa-nut trees in considerable numbers without the slightest remorse or fear. And yet again, I afterwards heard that one of the richest Hindu families in Calcutta, rather than suffer so sacred an object to be injured, piously submit to a very serious inconvenience occasioned by a cocoa-nut tree standing in the centre of the carriage road that leads to the portico of their large town palace. I am told that there are other sacred trees which must not be removed by the hands of Hindus of inferior caste, though in this case there is a way of getting over the difficulty, for it is allowable or even meritorious to make presents of these trees to Brahmins, who cut them down for their own fire-wood. But the cocoa-nut tree is said to be too sacred even for the axe of a Brahmin.

I have been running away again from my subject;--I was discoursing upon May-day in England. The season there is still a lovely and a merry one, though the most picturesque and romantic of its ancient observances, now live but in the memory of the "oldest inhabitants," or on the page of history.[055]

See where, amidst the sun and showers, The Lady of the vernal hours, Sweet May, comes forth again with all her flowers.

_Barry Cornwall_.

The _May-pole_ on these days is rarely seen to rise up in English towns with its proper floral decorations[056]. In remote rural districts a solitary May-pole is still, however, occasionally discovered. "A May-pole," says Washington Irving, "gave a glow to my feelings and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day: and as I traversed a part of the fair plains of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which the Deva wound its wizard stream, my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia. One can readily imagine what a gay scene old London must have been when the doors were decked with hawthorn; and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, Morris dancers, and all the other fantastic dancers and revellers were performing their antics about the May-pole in every part of the city. I value every custom which tends to infuse poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their simplicity."

Another American writer--a poet--has expressed his due appreciation of the pleasures of the season. He thus addresses the merrie month of MAY.[057]

MAY.

Would that thou couldst laugh for aye, Merry, ever merry May! Made of sun gleams, shade and showers Bursting buds, and breathing flowers, Dripping locked, and rosy vested, Violet slippered, rainbow crested; Girdled with the eglantine, Festooned with the dewy vine Merry, ever Merry May, Would that thou could laugh for aye!

_W.D. Gallagher._

I must give a dainty bit of description from the poet of the poets--our own romantic Spenser.

Then comes fair May, the fayrest mayde on ground, Decked with all dainties of the season's pryde, And throwing flowres out of her lap around. Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride, The twins of Leda, which, on eyther side, Supported her like to their Sovereign queene Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide, And leapt and danced as they had ravisht beene! And Cupid's self about her fluttred all in greene.

Here are a few lines from Herrick.

Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appeare Re-clothed in freshe and verdant diaper; Thawed are the snowes, and now the lusty spring Gives to each mead a neat enameling, The palmes[058] put forth their gemmes, and every tree Now swaggers in her leavy gallantry.

The Queen of May--Lady Flora--was the British representative of the Heathen Goddess Flora. May still returns and ever will return at her proper season, with all her bright leaves and fragrant blossoms, but men cease to make the same use of them as of yore. England is waxing utilitarian and prosaic.

The poets, let others neglect her as they will, must ever do fitting observance, in songs as lovely and fresh as the flowers of the hawthorn,

To the lady of the vernal hours.

Poor Keats, who was passionately fond of flowers, and everything beautiful or romantic or picturesque, complains, with a true poet's earnestness, that in _his_ day in England there were

No crowds of nymphs, soft-voiced and young and gay In woven baskets, bringing ears of corn, Roses and pinks and violets, to adorn The shrine of Flora in her early May.

The Floral Games--_Jeux Floraux_--of Toulouse--first celebrated at the commencement of the fourteenth century, are still kept up annually with great pomp and spirit. Clemence Isaure, a French lady, bequeathed to the Academy of Toulouse a large sum of money for the annual celebration of these games. A sort of College Council is formed, which not only confers degrees on those poets who do most honor to the Goddess Flora, but sometimes grants them more substantial favors. In 1324 the poets were encouraged to compete for a golden violet and a silver eglantine and pansy. A century later the prizes offered were an amaranthus of gold of the value of 400 livres, for the best ode, a violet of silver, valued at 250 livres, for an essay in prose, a silver pansy, worth 200 livres, for an eclogue, elegy or idyl, and a silver lily of the value of sixty livres, for the best sonnet or hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary,--for religion is mixed up with merriment, and heathen with Christian rites. He who gained a prize three times was honored with the title of Doctor _en gaye science_, the name given to the poetry of the Provencal troubadours. A mass, a sermon, and alms-giving, commence the ceremonies. The French poet, Ronsard who had gained a prize in the floral games, so delighted Mary Queen of Scots with his verses on the Rose that she presented him with a silver rose worth L500, with this inscription--"_A Ronsard, l'Apollon de la source des Muses_."

At Ghent floral festivals are held twice a year when amateur and professional florists assemble together and contribute each his share of flowers to the grand general exhibition which is under the direct patronage of the public authorities. Honorary medals are awarded to the possessors of the finest flowers.

The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year's day, when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay flags streaming from every mast. Their homes and temples are richly hung with festoons of flowers. Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom, enkianthus quinque-flora, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton. Even the Chinese ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore.

The Italians, it is said, still have artificers called _Festaroli_, whose business it is to prepare festoons and garlands. The ancient Romans were very tasteful in their nosegays and chaplets. Pliny tells us that the Sicyonians were especially celebrated for the graceful art exhibited in the arrangement of the varied colors of their garlands, and he gives us the story of Glycera who, to please her lover Pausias, the painter of Sicyon, used to send him the most exquisite chaplets of her own braiding, which he regularly copied on his canvas. He became very eminent as a flower-painter. The last work of his pencil, and his master-piece, was a picture of his mistress in the act of arranging a chaplet. The picture was called the _Garland Twiner_. It is related that Antony for some time mistrusting Cleopatra made her taste in the first instance every thing presented to him at her banquets. One day "the Serpent of old Nile" after dipping her own coronet of flowers into her goblet drank up the wine and then directed him to follow her example. He was off his guard. He dipped his chaplet in his cup. The leaves had been touched with poison. He was just raising the cup to his lips when she seized his arm, and said "Cease your jealous doubts, for know, that if I had desired your death or wished to live without you, I could easily have destroyed you." The Queen then ordered a prisoner to be brought into their presence, who being made to drink from the cup, instantly expired.[059]

Some of the nosegays made up by "flower-girls" in London and its neighbourhood are sold at such extravagant prices that none but the very wealthy are in the habit of purchasing them, though sometimes a poor lover is tempted to present his mistress on a ball-night with a bouquet that he can purchase only at the cost of a good many more leaves of bread or substantial meals than he can well spare. He has to make every day a banian-day for perhaps half a month that his mistress may wear a nosegay for a few hours. However, a lover is often like a cameleon and can almost live on air--_for a time_--"promise-crammed." 'You cannot feed capons so.'

At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers to the greatest possible advantage.

All true poets

--The sages Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--

have contemplated flowers--with a passionate love, an ardent admiration; none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical personifications of etherial beauty. In _The Winter's Tale_ our great dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too often quoted.

Here's flowers for you, Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram, The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

* * * * *

O, Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall From Dis's waggon! Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty, violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses, That die unmarried ere they can behold Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds, The flower de luce being one

Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of "_pale_ primroses." The poets almost always allude to the primrose as a _pale_ and interesting invalid. Milton tells us of

The yellow cowslip and the _pale_ primrose[060]

The poet in the manuscript of his _Lycidas_ had at first made the primrose "_die unwedded_," which was a pretty close copy of Shakespeare. Milton afterwards struck out the word "_unwedded_," and substituted the word "_forsaken_." The reason why the primrose was said to "die unmarried," is, according to Warton, because it grows in the shade uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with certain sorts of flowers. Ben Jonson, however, describes the primrose as _a wedded lady_--"the Spring's own _Spouse_"--though she is certainly more commonly regarded as the daughter of Spring not the wife. J Fletcher gives her the true parentage:--

Primrose, first born child of Ver

There are some kinds of primroses, that are not _pale_. There is a species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and the leaves musk-scented.

In Sweden they call the Primrose _The key of May_.

The primrose is always a great favorite with imaginative and sensitive observers, but there are too many people who look upon the beautiful with a utilitarian eye, or like Wordsworth's Peter Bell regard it with perfect indifference.

A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him. And it was nothing more.

I have already given one anecdote of a utilitarian; but I may as well give two more anecdotes of a similar character. Mrs. Wordsworth was in a grove, listening to the cooing of the stock-doves, and associating their music with the remembrance of her husband's verses to a stock-dove, when a farmer's wife passing by exclaimed, "Oh, I do like stock-doves!" The woman won the heart of the poet's wife at once; but she did not long retain it. "Some people," continued the speaker, "like 'em in a pie; for my part I think there's nothing like 'em stewed in inions." This was a rustic utilitarian. Here is an instance of a very different sort of utilitarianism--the utilitarianism of men who lead a gay town life. Sir W.H. listened, patiently for some time to a poetical-minded friend who was rapturously expatiating upon the delicious perfume of a bed of violets; "Oh yes," said Sir W. at last, "its all very well, but for my part I very much prefer the smell of a flambeau at the theatre." But intellects far more capacious than that of Sir W.H. have exhibited the same indifference to the beautiful in nature. Locke and Jeremy Bentham and even Sir Isaac Newton despised all poetry. And yet God never meant man to be insensible to the beautiful or the poetical. "Poetry, like truth," says Ebenezer Elliot, "is a common flower: God has sown it over the earth, like the daisies sprinkled with tears or glowing in the sun, even as he places the crocus and the March frosts together and beautifully mingles life and death." If the finer and more spiritual faculties of men were as well cultivated or exercised as are their colder and coarser faculties there would be fewer utilitarians. But the highest part of our nature is too much neglected in all our systems of education. Of the beauty and fragrance of flowers all earthly creatures except man are apparently meant to be unconscious. The cattle tread down or masticate the fairest flowers without a single "compunctious visiting of nature." This excites no surprize. It is no more than natural. But it is truly painful and humiliating to see any human being as insensible as the beasts of the field to that poetry of the world which God seems to have addressed exclusively to the heart and soul of man.

In South Wales the custom of strewing all kinds of flowers over the graves of departed friends, is preserved to the present day. Shakespeare, it appears, knew something of the customs of that part of his native country and puts the following _flowery_ speech into the mouth of the young Prince, Arviragus, who was educated there.

With fairest flowers, While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor The azured Harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of Eglantine; whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath.

_Cymbeline_.

Here are two more flower-passages from Shakespeare.

Here's a few flowers; but about midnight more; The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves.--Upon their faces:-- You were as flowers; now withered; even so These herblets shall, which we upon you strow.

_Cymbeline_.

Sweets to the sweet. Farewell! I hoped thou shoulds't have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not t' have strewed thy grave.

_Hamlet_.

Flowers are peculiarly suitable ornaments for the grave, for as Evelyn truly says, "they are just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scripture to those fading creatures, whose roots being buried in dishonor rise again in glory."[061]

This thought is natural and just. It is indeed a most impressive sight, a most instructive pleasure, to behold some "bright consummate flower" rise up like a radiant exhalation or a beautiful vision--like good from evil--with such stainless purity and such dainty loveliness, from the hot-bed of corruption.

Milton turns his acquaintance with flowers to divine account in his Lycidas.

Return; Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye vallies low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers. And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,[062] And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies, For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with faint surmise

Here is a nosegay of spring-flowers from the hand of Thomson:--

Fair handed Spring unbosoms every grace, Throws out the snow drop and the crocus first, the daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes, The yellow wall flower, stained with iron brown, And lavish stock that scents the garden round, From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed, Anemonies, auriculas, enriched With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves And full ranunculus of glowing red Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays Her idle freaks from family diffused To family, as flies the father dust, The varied colors run, and while they break On the charmed eye, the exulting Florist marks With secret pride, the wonders of his hand Nor gradual bloom is wanting, from the bird, First born of spring, to Summer's musky tribes Nor hyacinth, of purest virgin white, Low bent, and, blushing inward, nor jonquils, Of potent fragrance, nor Narcissus fair, As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still, Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks; Nor, showered from every bush, the damask rose. Infinite varieties, delicacies, smells, With hues on hues expression cannot paint, The breath of Nature and her endless bloom.

Here are two bouquets of flowers from the garden of Cowper

Laburnum, rich In streaming gold, syringa, ivory pure, The scentless and the scented rose, this red, And of an humbler growth, the other[063] tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighboring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave, The lilac, various in array, now white, Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if Studious of ornament yet unresolved Which hue she most approved, she chose them all, Copious of flowers the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never cloying odours, early and late, Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flowers, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a loaf appears, mezereon too, Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing every spray, Althaea with the purple eye, the broom Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms, and luxuriant above all The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more, The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars

* * * * *

Th' amomum there[064] with intermingling flowers And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts Her crimson honors, and the spangled beau Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long All plants, of every leaf, that can endure The winter's frown, if screened from his shrewd bite, Live their and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, Levantine regions those, the Azores send Their jessamine, her jessamine remote Caffraia, foreigners from many lands, They form one social shade as if convened By magic summons of the Orphean lyre

Here is a bunch of flowers laid before the public eye by Mr. Proctor--

There the rose unveils Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud O' the season comes in turn to bloom and perish, But first of all the violet, with an eye Blue as the midnight heavens, the frail snowdrop, Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow Fixed like a full and solitary star The languid hyacinth, and wild primrose And daisy trodden down like modesty The fox glove, in whose drooping bells the bee Makes her sweet music, the Narcissus (named From him who died for love) the tangled woodbine, Lilacs, and flowering vines, and scented thorns, And some from whom the voluptuous winds of June Catch their perfumings

_Barry Cornwall_

I take a second supply of flowers from the same hand