Roses on My Table
Roses on My Table
With Mother’s Day, the house has been filled with more than its usual allotment of fresh flowers. This vase of pink roses put me in mind of that saying of Emma Goldman: “I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.”
The richness of these soft, blushing petals is very different from the glint and dazzle of gems. Even this small bunch seems to brighten the entire family room with its warm splash of bright color.
The following is an excerpt from John H. Young’s A Guide to the Manners, Etiquette, and Deportment of the Most Refined Society, from the Chapter “The Language of Flowers.”
How beautiful and yet how cheap are flowers! Not exotics, but what are called common flowers. A rose, for instance, is among the most beautiful smiles of nature. The “laughing flowers,” exclaims the poet. But there is more than gayety in blooming flowers, though it takes a wise man to see the beauty, the love, and the adaptation of which they are full.
What should we think of one who invented flowers, supposing that, before him, flowers were unknown? Would he not be regarded as the opener-up of a paradise of new delight? Should we not hail the inventor as a genius, a god? And yet these lovely offsprings of the earth have been speaking to man from the first dawn of his existence until now, telling him of the goodness and wisdom of the Creative Power, which bid the earth bring forth, not only that which is useful as food, but also flowers, the bright consummate flowers to clothe it in beauty and joy!
Bring one of the commonest field flowers into a room, place it on a table, or a chimney piece, and you seem to have brought a ray of sunshine into the place. There is a cheerfulness about flowers. What a delight are they to a drooping invalid! They are a sweet enjoyment, coming as messengers from the country, and seeming to say, “Come and see the place where we grow, and let your heart be glad in our presence.”
There is a sentiment attached to flowers, and this sentiment has been expressed in language by giving names to various flowers, shrubs and plants. These names constitute a language, which may be made the medium of pleasant and amusing interchange of thought between men and women. A bouquet of flowers and leaves may be selected and arranged so as to express much depth of feeling - to be truly a poem. We present herewith a list of many flowers and plants, to which, by universal consent, a sentiment has become attached.
Read more in the May edition of Delightful Little Times.
Photographs: Roses on My Table, Etc. © Handmaidens of the Shepherd, May 2008.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008