VI. Flowers

VI. Flowers

In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were

whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have you

not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers?

Surely with mankind the appreciation of flowers must have

been coeval with the poetry of love. Where better than in a

flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, fragrant because of its

silence, can we image the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval

man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended

the brute. He became human in thus rising above the crude

necessities of nature. He entered the realm of art when he

perceived the subtle use of the useless.

In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink,

sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen with flowers.

We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily,

we have meditated with the lotus, we have charged in battle array

with the rose and the chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to

speak in the language of flowers. How could we live without them?

It frightens one to conceive of a world bereft of their presence.

What solace do they not bring to the bedside of the sick, what a

light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits? Their serene tenderness

restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the

intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes. When we are

laid low in the dust it is they who linger in sorrow over our graves.

Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our

companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above

the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon

show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an animal,

at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty

a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never

ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing

sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled

before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon

we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves. Our god is

great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to

make sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter

and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities

do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement!

Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the

garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews

and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that

awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the

gentle breezes of summer. To-morrow a ruthless hand will close

around your throats. You will be wrenched, torn asunder limb

by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes. The wretch,

she may be passing fair. She may say how lovely you are while

her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be

kindness? It may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of

one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the

buttonhole of one who would not dare to look you in the face

were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in

some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the

maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life.

Flowers, if you were in the land of the Mikado, you might some

time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a tiny saw.

He would call himself a Master of Flowers. He would claim the

rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate him, for you

know a doctor always seeks to prolong the troubles of his victims.

He would cut, bend, and twist you into those impossible positions

which he thinks it proper that you should assume. He would

contort your muscles and dislocate your bones like any osteopath.

He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and

thrust wires into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you

with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water

would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint.

It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two

or more weeks longer than would have been possible without his

treatment. Would you not have preferred to have been killed at once

when you were first captured? What were the crimes you must have

committed during your past incarnation to warrant such punishment

in this?

The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more

appalling than the way they are treated by Eastern Flower

Masters. The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the

ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and America, to be

thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous;

if strung together they might garland a continent. Beside this

utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes

insignificant. He, at least, respects the economy of nature,

selects his victims with careful foresight, and after death does

honour to their remains. In the West the display of flowers seems

to be a part of the pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment.

Whither do they all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over?

Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly

flung upon a dung heap.

Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless?

Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when

brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some

bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you

covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only

flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand

helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony

their cry never reaches our hardened ears. We are ever brutal to

those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when,

for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours.

Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer

every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to

depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated

to heaven.

Much may be said in favor of him who cultivates plants. The man

of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors. We watch

with delight his concern about water and sunshine, his feuds with

parasites, his horror of frosts, his anxiety when the buds come

slowly, his rapture when the leaves attain their lustre. In the East

the art of floriculture is a very ancient one, and the loves of a poet

and his favorite plant have often been recorded in story and song.

With the development of ceramics during the Tang and Sung

dynasties we hear of wonderful receptacles made to hold plants,

not pots, but jewelled palaces. A special attendant was detailed

to wait upon each flower and to wash its leaves with soft brushes

made of rabbit hair. It has been written ["Pingtse", by Yuenchunlang]

that the peony should be bathed by a handsome maiden in full

costume, that a winter-plum should be watered by a pale, slender

monk. In Japan, one of the most popular of the No-dances, the

Hachinoki, composed during the Ashikaga period, is based upon

the story of an impoverished knight, who, on a freezing night,

in lack of fuel for a fire, cuts his cherished plants in order to

entertain a wandering friar. The friar is in reality no other than

Hojo-Tokiyori, the Haroun-Al-Raschid of our tales, and the

sacrifice is not without its reward. This opera never fails to

draw tears from a Tokio audience even to-day.

Great precautions were taken for the preservation of delicate

blossoms. Emperor Huensung, of the Tang Dynasty, hung

tiny golden bells on the branches in his garden to keep off

the birds. He it was who went off in the springtime with his

court musicians to gladden the flowers with soft music.

A quaint tablet, which tradition ascribes to Yoshitsune,

the hero of our Arthurian legends, is still extant in one of

the Japanese monasteries [Sumadera, near Kobe]. It

is a notice put up for the protection of a certain wonderful

plum-tree, and appeals to us with the grim humour of

a warlike age. After referring to the beauty of the blossoms,

the inscription says: "Whoever cuts a single branch of

this tree shall forfeit a finger therefor." Would that such

laws could be enforced nowadays against those who

wantonly destroy flowers and mutilate objects of art!

Yet even in the case of pot flowers we are inclined to suspect

the selfishness of man. Why take the plants from their homes

and ask them to bloom mid strange surroundings? Is it not

like asking the birds to sing and mate cooped up in cages?

Who knows but that the orchids feel stifled by the artificial

heat in your conservatories and hopelessly long for a glimpse

of their own Southern skies?

The ideal lover of flowers is he who visits them in their native

haunts, like Taoyuenming [all celebrated Chinese poets and

philosophers], who sat before a broken bamboo fence in

converse with the wild chrysanthemum, or Linwosing, losing

himself amid mysterious fragrance as he wandered in the

twilight among the plum-blossoms of the Western Lake.

'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams

might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit

which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned

Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will

defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art,

I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the present, of

the future."

However, let us not be too sentimental. Let us be less luxurious

but more magnificent. Said Laotse: "Heaven and earth are

pitiless." Said Kobodaishi: "Flow, flow, flow, flow, the current

of life is ever onward. Die, die, die, die, death comes to all."

Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and

above, destruction behind and before. Change is the only

Eternal,--why not as welcome Death as Life? They are but

counterparts one of the other,--The Night and Day of Brahma.

Through the disintegration of the old, re-creation becomes

possible. We have worshipped Death, the relentless goddess

of mercy, under many different names. It was the shadow of

the All-devouring that the Gheburs greeted in the fire. It is the

icy purism of the sword-soul before which Shinto-Japan prostrates

herself even to-day. The mystic fire consumes our weakness, the

sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire. From our ashes

springs the phoenix of celestial hope, out of the freedom comes a

higher realisation of manhood.

Why not destroy flowers if thereby we can evolve new forms

ennobling the world idea? We only ask them to join in our

sacrifice to the beautiful. We shall atone for the deed by

consecrating ourselves to Purity and Simplicity. Thus reasoned

the tea-masters when they established the Cult of Flowers.

Anyone acquainted with the ways of our tea- and flower-masters

must have noticed the religious veneration with which they

regard flowers. They do not cull at random, but carefully select

each branch or spray with an eye to the artistic composition

they have in mind. They would be ashamed should they chance

to cut more than were absolutely necessary. It may be remarked

in this connection that they always associate the leaves, if there

be any, with the flower, for the object is to present the whole

beauty of plant life. In this respect, as in many others, their

method differs from that pursued in Western countries. Here we

are apt to see only the flower stems, heads as it were, without

body, stuck promiscuously into a vase.

When a tea-master has arranged a flower to his satisfaction he

will place it on the tokonoma, the place of honour in a Japanese

room. Nothing else will be placed near it which might interfere

with its effect, not even a painting, unless there be some special

aesthetic reason for the combination. It rests there like an

enthroned prince, and the guests or disciples on entering the

room will salute it with a profound bow before making their

addresses to the host. Drawings from masterpieces are made

and published for the edification of amateurs. The amount of

literature on the subject is quite voluminous. When the flower

fades, the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully

buries it in the ground. Monuments are sometimes erected

to their memory.

The birth of the Art of Flower Arrangement seems to be

simultaneous with that of Teaism in the fifteenth century.

Our legends ascribe the first flower arrangement to those

early Buddhist saints who gathered the flowers strewn by

the storm and, in their infinite solicitude for all living things,

placed them in vessels of water. It is said that Soami, the

great painter and connoisseur of the court of Ashikaga-

Yoshimasa, was one of the earliest adepts at it. Juko, the

tea-master, was one of his pupils, as was also Senno, the

founder of the house of Ikenobo, a family as illustrious in

the annals of flowers as was that of the Kanos in painting.

With the perfecting of the tea-ritual under Rikiu, in the latter

part of the sixteenth century, flower arrangement also attains

its full growth. Rikiu and his successors, the celebrated Oda-

wuraka, Furuka-Oribe, Koyetsu, Kobori-Enshiu, Katagiri-

Sekishiu, vied with each other in forming new combinations.

We must remember, however, that the flower-worship of the

tea-masters formed only a part of their aesthetic ritual, and

was not a distinct religion by itself. A flower arrangement,

like the other works of art in the tea-room, was subordinated

to the total scheme of decoration. Thus Sekishiu ordained

that white plum blossoms should not be made use of when

snow lay in the garden. "Noisy" flowers were relentlessly

banished from the tea-room. A flower arrangement by a

tea-master loses its significance if removed from the place for

which it was originally intended, for its lines and proportions

have been specially worked out with a view to its surroundings.

The adoration of the flower for its own sake begins with the

rise of "Flower-Masters," toward the middle of the seventeenth

century. It now becomes independent of the tea-room and

knows no law save that the vase imposes on it. New conceptions

and methods of execution now become possible, and many were

the principles and schools resulting therefrom. A writer in the

middle of the last century said he could count over one hundred

different schools of flower arrangement. Broadly speaking,

these divide themselves into two main branches, the Formalistic

and the Naturalesque. The Formalistic schools, led by the

Ikenobos, aimed at a classic idealism corresponding to that of the

Kano-academicians. We possess records of arrangements by the

early masters of the school which almost reproduce the flower

paintings of Sansetsu and Tsunenobu. The Naturalesque school,

on the other hand, accepted nature as its model, only imposing

such modifications of form as conduced to the expression of

artistic unity. Thus we recognise in its works the same impulses

which formed the Ukiyoe and Shijo schools of painting.

It would be interesting, had we time, to enter more fully than it

is now possible into the laws of composition and detail formulated

by the various flower-masters of this period, showing, as they would,

the fundamental theories which governed Tokugawa decoration.

We find them referring to the Leading Principle (Heaven), the

Subordinate Principle (Earth), the Reconciling Principle (Man),

and any flower arrangement which did not embody these principles

was considered barren and dead. They also dwelt much on the

importance of treating a flower in its three different aspects,

the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Informal. The first might be

said to represent flowers in the stately costume of the ballroom,

the second in the easy elegance of afternoon dress, the third in the

charming deshabille of the boudoir.

Our personal sympathies are with the flower-arrangements of the

tea-master rather than with those of the flower-master. The former

is art in its proper setting and appeals to us on account of its true

intimacy with life. We should like to call this school the Natural

in contradistinction to the Naturalesque and Formalistic schools.

The tea-master deems his duty ended with the selection of the

flowers, and leaves them to tell their own story. Entering a tea-room

in late winter, you may see a slender spray of wild cherries in

combination with a budding camellia; it is an echo of departing

winter coupled with the prophecy of spring. Again, if you go into

a noon-tea on some irritatingly hot summer day, you may discover

in the darkened coolness of the tokonoma a single lily in a hanging

vase; dripping with dew, it seems to smile at the foolishness of life.

A solo of flowers is interesting, but in a concerto with painting and

sculpture the combination becomes entrancing. Sekishiu once

placed some water-plants in a flat receptacle to suggest the

vegetation of lakes and marshes, and on the wall above he hung

a painting by Soami of wild ducks flying in the air. Shoha, another

tea-master, combined a poem on the Beauty of Solitude by the Sea

with a bronze incense burner in the form of a fisherman's hut and

some wild flowers of the beach. One of the guests has recorded that

he felt in the whole composition the breath of waning autumn.

Flower stories are endless. We shall recount but one more.

In the sixteenth century the morning-glory was as yet a rare

plant with us. Rikiu had an entire garden planted with it, which

he cultivated with assiduous care. The fame of his convulvuli

reached the ear of the Taiko, and he expressed a desire to see

them, in consequence of which Rikiu invited him to a morning

tea at his house. On the appointed day Taiko walked through the

garden, but nowhere could he see any vestige of the convulvus.

The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand.

With sullen anger the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight

waited him there which completely restored his humour. On the

tokonoma, in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single

morning-glory--the queen of the whole garden!

In such instances we see the full significance of the Flower Sacrifice.

Perhaps the flowers appreciate the full significance of it. They are

not cowards, like men. Some flowers glory in death--certainly the

Japanese cherry blossoms do, as they freely surrender themselves

to the winds. Anyone who has stood before the fragrant avalanche

at Yoshino or Arashiyama must have realized this. For a moment

they hover like bejewelled clouds and dance above the crystal streams;

then, as they sail away on the laughing waters, they seem to say:

"Farewell, O Spring! We are on to eternity."