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Page 31
From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the most
exclusive of all schools, worked out the following syllogism
in the same year: --
"To despise flowers is to offend God.
"The more beautiful the flower is, the more does one offend
God in despising it.
"The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers.
"Therefore, he who despises the tulip offends God beyond
measure."
By reasoning of this kind, it can be seen that the four or
five thousand tulip-growers of Holland, France, and
Portugal, leaving out those of Ceylon and China and the
Indies, might, if so disposed, put the whole world under the
ban, and condemn as schismatics and heretics and deserving
of death the several hundred millions of mankind whose hopes
of salvation were not centred upon the tulip.
We cannot doubt that in such a cause Boxtel, though he was
Van Baerle's deadly foe, would have marched under the same
banner with him.
Mynheer van Baerle and his tulips, therefore, were in the
mouth of everybody; so much so, that Boxtel's name
disappeared for ever from the list of the notable
tulip-growers in Holland, and those of Dort were now
represented by Cornelius van Baerle, the modest and
inoffensive savant.
Engaging, heart and soul, in his pursuits of sowing,
planting, and gathering, Van Baerle, caressed by the whole
fraternity of tulip-growers in Europe, entertained nor the
least suspicion that there was at his very door a pretender
whose throne he had usurped.
He went on in his career, and consequently in his triumphs;
and in the course of two years he covered his borders with
such marvellous productions as no mortal man, following in
the tracks of the Creator, except perhaps Shakespeare and
Rubens, have equalled in point of numbers.
And also, if Dante had wished for a new type to be added to
his characters of the Inferno, he might have chosen Boxtel
during the period of Van Baerle's successes. Whilst
Cornelius was weeding, manuring, watering his beds, whilst,
kneeling on the turf border, he analysed every vein of the
flowering tulips, and meditated on the modifications which
might be effected by crosses of colour or otherwise, Boxtel,
concealed behind a small sycamore which he had trained at
the top of the partition wall in the shape of a fan,
watched, with his eyes starting from their sockets and with
foaming mouth, every step and every gesture of his
neighbour; and whenever he thought he saw him look happy, or
descried a smile on his lips, or a flash of contentment
glistening in his eyes, he poured out towards him such a
volley of maledictions and furious threats as to make it
indeed a matter of wonder that this venomous breath of envy
and hatred did not carry a blight on the innocent flowers
which had excited it.
When the evil spirit has once taken hold of the heart of
man, it urges him on, without letting him stop. Thus Boxtel
soon was no longer content with seeing Van Baerle. He wanted
to see his flowers, too; he had the feelings of an artist,
the master-piece of a rival engrossed his interest.
He therefore bought a telescope, which enabled him to watch
as accurately as did the owner himself every progressive
development of the flower, from the moment when, in the
first year, its pale seed-leaf begins to peep from the
ground, to that glorious one, when, after five years, its
petals at last reveal the hidden treasures of its chalice.
How often had the miserable, jealous man to observe in Van
Baerle's beds tulips which dazzled him by their beauty, and
almost choked him by their perfection!
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