The florists have no eye for anything else, and the
biggest floral prizes are awarded for the production of its
eccentricities. Is the rage for this flower typical of this fast and
flaring age?
The Drawer is not an enemy to the chrysanthemum, nor to the sunflower,
nor to any other gorgeous production of nature. But it has an
old-fashioned love for the modest and unobtrusive virtues, and an abiding
faith that they will win over the strained and strident displays of life.
There is the violet: all efforts of cultivation fail to make it as big as
the peony, and it would be no more dear to the heart if it were
quadrupled in size. We do, indeed, know that satisfying beauty and
refinement are apt to escape us when we strive too much and force nature
into extraordinary display, and we know how difficult it is to get mere
bigness and show without vulgarity. Cultivation has its limits. After we
have produced it, we find that the biggest rose even is not the most
precious; and lovely as woman is, we instinctively in our admiration put
a limit to her size. There being, then, certain laws that ultimately
fetch us all up standing, so to speak, it does seem probable that the
chrysanthemum rage will end in a gorgeous sunset of its splendor; that
fashion will tire of it, and that the rose, with its secret heart of
love; the rose, with its exquisite form; the rose, with its capacity of
shyly and reluctantly unfolding its beauty; the rose, with that odor--of
the first garden exhaled and yet kept down through all the ages of sin
--will become again the fashion, and be more passionately admired for its
temporary banishment.
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