Part 5 (1/2)
Besides, Isaac had made the discovery that too rew quicker, and had a better colouring, with the te, than with the powerful heat of the rateful to Cornelius van Baerle for having given hiratis
Maybe this was not quite in accordance with the true state of things in general, and of Isaac Boxtel's feelings in particular It is certainly astonishi+ng what rich coreat minds, in the midst of momentous catastrophes, will derive from the consolations of philosophy
But alas! What was the agony of the unfortunate Boxtel on seeing the s of the new story set out with bulbs and seedlings of tulips for the border, and tulips in pots; in short, with everything pertaining to the pursuits of a tulip-monomaniac!
There were bundles of labels, cupboards, and draith couards for the cupboards, to allow free access to the air whilst keeping out slugs, mice, dormice, and rats, all of them very curious fanciers of tulips at two thousand francs a bulb
Boxtel was quite amazed when he saw all this apparatus, but he was not as yet aware of the full extent of histhat pleases the eye He studied Nature in all her aspects for the benefit of his paintings, which were as minutely finished as those of Gerard Dow, his master, and of Mieris, his friend Was it not possible, that, having to paint the interior of a tulip-grower's, he had collected in his new studio all the accessories of decoration?
Yet, although thus consoling himself with illusory suppositions, Boxtel was not able to resist the burning curiosity which was devouring hiainst the partition wall between their gardens, and, looking into that of his neighbour Van Baerle, he convinced hie square bed, which had formerly been occupied by different plants, was reround disposed in beds of loam mixed with river mud (a combination which is particularly favourable to the tulip), and the whole surrounded by a border of turf to keep the soil in its place Besides this, sufficient shade to temper the noonday heat; aspect south-southwest; water in abundant supply, and at hand; in short, every requireress There could not be a doubt that Van Baerle had becorower
Boxtel at once pictured to himself this learned man, with a capital of four hundred thousand and a yearly inco all his intellectual and financial resources to the cultivation of the tulip He foresaw his neighbour's success, and he felt such a pang at the mere idea of this success that his hands dropped powerless, his knees trembled, and he fell in despair from the ladder
And thus it was not for the sake of painted tulips, but for real ones, that Van Baerle took froree of warmth And thus Van Baerle was to have the e, airy, and well ventilated chas; while he, Boxtel, had been obliged to give up for this purpose his bedrooht injure his bulbs and seedlings, had taken up his abode in a arret
Boxtel, then, was to have next door to him a rival and successful co soardener, was the Godson of Mynheer Cornelius de Witt, that is to say, a celebrity
Boxtel, as the reader may see, was not possessed of the spirit of Porus, who, on being conquered by Alexander, consoled himself with the celebrity of his conqueror
And now if Van Baerle produced a new tulip, and na nah to choke one with rage
Thus Boxtel, with jealous foreboding, beca made this inable
Chapter 6
The Hatred of a Tulip-fancier
Froer a sti anxiety Henceforth all his thoughts ran only upon the injury which his neighbour would cause hied into a constant source of ined, had no sooner begun to apply his natural ingenuity to his new fancy, than he succeeded in growing the finest tulips Indeed; he knew better than any one else at Haarlem or Leyden -- the thich boast the best soil and the enial climate -- how to vary the colours, to ed to that natural, humorous school who took for their motto in the seventeenth century the aphorism uttered by one of their number in 1653, -- ”To despise flowers is to offend God”
From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the ism in the same year: -- ”To despise flowers is to offend God
”The more beautiful the flower is, theit
”The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers
”Therefore, he who despises the tulip offends God beyondof 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, ht, if so disposed, put the whole world under the ban, and conde 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 narowers in Holland, and those of Dort were now represented by Cornelius van Baerle, the , 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 suchin 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, hethe period of Van Baerle's successes Whilst Cornelius eeding,on the turf border, he analysed every vein of the flowering tulips, and ht 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 froesture of his neighbour; and whenever he thought he saw him look happy, or descried a s 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 venoht on the innocent flohich had excited it
When the evil spirit has once taken hold of the heart ofhi Van Baerle He wanted to see his flowers, too; he had the feelings of an artist, the rossed his interest
He therefore bought a telescope, which enabled hiressive development of the flower, froins to peep frolorious 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!
And then, after the first blush of the adan to be tortured by the pangs of envy, by that slow fever which creeps over the heart and changes it into a nest of vipers, each devouring the other and ever born ane often did Boxtel, in the midst of tortures which no pen is able fully to describe, -- how often did he feel an inclination to juht, to destroy the plants, to tear the bulbs with his teeth, and to sacrifice to his wrath the owner himself, if he should venture to stand up for the defence of his tulips!
But to kill a tulip was a horrible cri a man, it would not have ress in the noble science of growing tulips, which he seeenius, that Boxtel at last wasstones and sticks into the flower-stands of his neighbour But, re that he would be sure to be found out, and that he would not only be punished by law, but also dishonoured for ever in the face of all the tulip-growers of Europe, he had recourse to stratageratify his hatred, tried to devise a plan byco time, and at last hishe tied two cats together by their hind legs with a string about six feet in length, and threw them from the wall into the midst of that noble, that princely, that royal bed, which contained not only the ”Cornelius de Witt,” but also the ”Beauty of Brabant,” ed with purple and pink, the ”Marble of Rotterdam,” colour of flax, blossoms feathered red and flesh colour, the ”Wonder of Haarlem,” the ”Colohtened cats, having alighted on the ground, first tried to fly each in a different direction, until the string by which they were tied together was tightly stretched across the bed; then, however, feeling that they were not able to get off, they began to pull to and fro, and to wheel about with hideous caterwaulings,which they were struggling, until, after a furious strife of about a quarter of an hour, the string broke and the combatants vanished
Boxtel, hidden behind his syca, as it was pitch-dark; but the piercing cries of the cats told the whole tale, and his heart overfloith gall now throbbed with triuer to ascertain the extent of the injury, that he re to feast his eyes on the sad state in which the two cats had left the flower-beds of his neighbour Thechilled his fra his blood at fever heat The chagrin of his rival was to pay for all the inconvenience which he incurred himself
At the earliest dawn the door of the white house opened, and Van Baerlethe flower-beds with the sht comfortably in his bed, and has had happy dreams
All at once he perceived furrows and littlebefore had been as smooth as a mirror, all at once he perceived the symmetrical rows of his tulips to be completely disordered, like the pikes of a battalion in the midst of which a shell has fallen
He ran up to them with blanched cheek
Boxtel trembled with joy Fifteen or twenty tulips, torn and crushed, were lying about, some of the, the sap oozing froladly would Van Baerle have redeemed that precious sap with his own blood!
But ere his surprise and his delight! as the disappointment of his rival! Not one of the four tulips which the latter had meant to destroy was injured at all They raised proudly their noble heads above the corpses of their slain coh to fan the rage of the horticultural ht of the effects of the crime which he had coine the cause of the mishap, which, fortunately, was of far less consequence than itinquiries, he learned that the whole night had been disturbed by terrible caterwaulings He besides found traces of the cats, their footuard, therefore, in future against a siave orders that henceforth one of the under gardeners should sleep in the garden in a sentry-box near the flower-beds
Boxtel heard hiive the order, and saw the sentry-box put up that very day; but he dee ainst the successful horticulturist, he resolved to bide his time
Just then the Tulip Society of Haarlem offered a prize for the discovery (we dare not say the e black tulip without a spot of colour, a thing which had not yet been accomplished, and was considered impossible, as at that ti even to a dark nut brown It was, therefore, generally said that the founders of the prize ht just as well have offered two uilders, since no one would be able to gain it
The tulip-groorld, however, was thrown by it into a state of ht at the idea without believing it practicable, but such is the power of i the undertaking as certain to fail, all their thoughts were engrossed by that great black tulip, which was looked upon to be as chimerical as the black swan of Horace or the white raven of French tradition