|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 133
Behind the Committee, who were as gay as a meadow, and as
fragrant as a garden in spring, marched the learned
societies of the town, the magistrates, the military, the
nobles and the boors.
The people, even among the respected republicans of the
Seven Provinces, had no place assigned to them in the
procession; they merely lined the streets.
This is the place for the multitude, which with true
philosophic spirit, waits until the triumphal pageants have
passed, to know what to say of them, and sometimes also to
know what to do.
This time, however, there was no question either of the
triumph of Pompey or of Caesar; neither of the defeat of
Mithridates, nor of the conquest of Gaul. The procession was
as placid as the passing of a flock of lambs, and as
inoffensive as a flight of birds sweeping through the air.
Haarlem had no other triumphers, except its gardeners.
Worshipping flowers, Haarlem idolised the florist.
In the centre of this pacific and fragrant cortege the black
tulip was seen, carried on a litter, which was covered with
white velvet and fringed with gold.
The handles of the litter were supported by four men, who
were from time to time relieved by fresh relays, -- even as
the bearers of Mother Cybele used to take turn and turn
about at Rome in the ancient days, when she was brought from
Etruria to the Eternal City, amid the blare of trumpets and
the worship of a whole nation.
This public exhibition of the tulip was an act of adoration
rendered by an entire nation, unlettered and unrefined, to
the refinement and culture of its illustrious and devout
leaders, whose blood had stained the foul pavement of the
Buytenhof, reserving the right at a future day to inscribe
the names of its victims upon the highest stone of the Dutch
Pantheon.
It was arranged that the Prince Stadtholder himself should
give the prize of a hundred thousand guilders, which
interested the people at large, and it was thought that
perhaps he would make a speech which interested more
particularly his friends and enemies.
For in the most insignificant words of men of political
importance their friends and their opponents always
endeavour to detect, and hence think they can interpret,
something of their true thoughts.
As if your true politician's hat were not a bushel under
which he always hides his light!
At length the great and long-expected day -- May 15, 1673 --
arrived; and all Haarlem, swelled by her neighbours, was
gathered in the beautiful tree-lined streets, determined on
this occasion not to waste its applause upon military
heroes, or those who had won notable victories in the field
of science, but to reserve their applause for those who had
overcome Nature, and had forced the inexhaustible mother to
be delivered of what had theretofore been regarded as
impossible, -- a completely black tulip.
Nothing however, is more fickle than such a resolution of
the people. When a crowd is once in the humour to cheer, it
is just the same as when it begins to hiss. It never knows
when to stop.
It therefore, in the first place, cheered Van Systens and
his nosegay, then the corporation, then followed a cheer for
the people; and, at last, and for once with great justice,
there was one for the excellent music with which the
gentlemen of the town councils generously treated the
assemblage at every halt.
Every eye was looking eagerly for the heroine of the
festival, -- that is to say, the black tulip, -- and for its
hero in the person of the one who had grown it.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|