Royal Dixon

“ The real sublimity of Nature lies in her vocalism. A soundless world would be greatly lacking in charm. The endearing noises of the woods and the fields often become so familiar [Pg 112] that we fail to notice their individual merits. Yet they are there. Their sudden cessation would leave a terrible and unbearable gap. The woods are filled with gaily costumed feathered minstrels. The meadows are great emerald stages of song and fancy. The very grass roots are filled with little insect-fiddlers who chirp cheerfulness. Wind, water and rain all furnish a grand and beautiful accompaniment. ”

“ When an approaching storm causes a plant to droop its body and contract its petals and leaves into the smallest compass possible, why is not fear, apprehension and melancholy indicated? When the jaws of the Venus Fly-Trap close on its hapless victim, they must do so with a savage joy akin to that of a Tiger springing on its prey.
There are those who relegate a certain amount of intelligence to plants but deny them consciousness. They are unwilling to admit that plants are aware of their own physical and mental processes. ”

“ Almost any tree located on a cliff or on the edge of a mountain, becomes a musician of the first order. It is apt to take on the sorrowful tendencies of solitude. The weepings, wailings, murmurings, groanings, sighs and whispers of the universe vibrate through its branches. [Pg 115] It would seem as if such a tree were trying to express many mysterious wonders of which man has little knowledge.
The trees are not altogether dependent upon their leaves for their music. The barren branches of fall and winter sing in a most attractive way. ”

“ The plants are perfect artists. From the budding of the Rose to the sudden shooting forth of the seeds of the Wistaria, everything they do is in perfect taste. Ugly flowers are decidedly uncommon. Those which human judgment declares to be less lovely than their fellows have their attractive points, if we take the trouble to look for them. If art is a desire for beauty, a searching after perfect harmony, then the plants and flowers are the most artistic creatures in the universe. ”

“ The airy fancies of our forefathers should have a larger share in our thought today. A single flower myth contains more beauty and enduring appeal than a hundred steel mills. We must go back to the youth of the race,—to the time of Shakespeare, Milton, and gentle Ben Jonson,—for our noblest literature. In those days, men actually believed in fairies, goblins, and all the rest, and were probably better for having done so. ”

“ Among the individual sacred flowers, Orchids and Lotus-Blossoms have probably been known and reverenced as much as any. There is small wonder that sentiment approaching veneration should exist toward the Orchids. Their singular beauty and fragrance have compelled the admiration of all historic peoples. The primitive Mexicans hold them in very great esteem. The Lotus-Flower, portrayed through all the ages, on papyrus, paper, silk, stone, and wood, has a world-wide sanctity. ”

“ If you would unravel the mysteries of the universe, desert the cloistered hearth for the wonders of woods and meadows. Slow-thinking man will never understand the secret of his own existence, until he thoroughly understands the plants outside his window.
For one to examine dead, withered specimens and hope to understand Nature is as if a person should analyze hundreds of Egyptian mummies in order to acquaint himself with the [Pg 12] human race. You must seek the flowers on their native heath and treat them as friends and equals. ”

“ Every division of terrestrial life constitutes a struggle. The plants grow and carry on their business and social activities so unobtrusively that we seldom think of them as appealing to arms—yet their whole existence is a battle royal. They must fight with aspiring neighbours for every inch of their upward growth, and at the same time wage incessant warfare against a hundred insects and animal foes. ”

“ Nature is the true and original sculptor. From her we learn our rules of symmetry and design. All her plant creations are finished with a faithfulness to artistic principles which is quite exact. Nor does she build houses with false exteriors. Her structures show forth the necessity of truth in real esthetic creation. Bartholdi’s exquisite Statue of Liberty, viewed from the interior, is an ugly, hollow tube. A stalk of corn not only has a pleasing exterior but is made up of symmetrically formed and packed interior cells. ”

“ This is due, no doubt, to the luxuriance of vegetation in the hot countries, and the fact that, in most cases, flowers are in bloom there all the year around. Even one trained in a more rigid faith is tempted to strange reverence when he suddenly comes upon a great, glowing Orchid, squatting like some beautiful animal on the shaggy trunk of an aged tree. A Hindu is quite excusable when he becomes raptly worshipful while paddling through a floating sea of Lotus-Flowers. ”

“ In the autumn, nearly all leaves show brilliant patches of colour.
In borrowing Nature’s colours to set forth our ideas, we have become possessors of a mighty vehicle of expression. With yellow, we can speak of life, light, cheer and vitality. Red tells of fire, heat, blood, excitement and passion. Blue indicates coolness, quiet and restraint. In choosing green for its most universal colour, Nature harmonizes life and restraint, warmth and coolness, as represented by the component blue and yellow. ”

“ The Elm is a pleasing autumn singer and the Willows, when covered with ice, rattle their twigs like a minstrel’s bones. As the winter wind hums around the Cottonwood Trees, it rocks the seed balls in their natural cradles with a sighing, crooning sound. ”

“ In fact, one has only to watch the Sun-Flower follow the orb of day across the heavens to realize that there must be something vital in sunlight for the plants. What interests us is that they have the instinct or the knowledge to so present their surfaces to the light that they receive a maximum benefit from its influences. From the aristocratic indoor potted plant to the wild trees and shrubs on the edge of a thicket, we notice a vigorous straining toward the light. ”

“ Immortality by reproduction is not enough. If it were true that the eternal principle continually passes from parent to offspring, and that when the parent dies, he is dead spiritually as well as physically, then we should expect immediate degeneracy and death after reproduction takes place. That a portion of soul essence descends through countless generations we do not doubt, but each plant and animal is also a spiritual entity. Man and plants are both tools in the hands of Maeterlinck’s all-prevailing intelligence. Yet man feels that he is a free agent. ”

“ There is no doubt that this is true, but for one to believe that this is the sole function of a flower’s beauty is to reduce the world to a materialistic basis and banish all thoughts of the esthetic, the spiritual and the ideal. The flowers are permitted to adorn themselves in bright raiment at least partly in order to satisfy the universal craving for the delicate and the artistic. ”

“ As the whole life of all plants is a scientific progression, we can only consider in the brief limits of this chapter some of the more startling instances of the marvelous sense they exhibit in dealing with Nature’s forces.
Probably one of the reasons we do not always think of plants in the human, sympathetic way we should, is that we are inclined to regard them as quiet, static objects, playthings of every wind that blows upon them. Such is far from the case. Life is motion and the plants are very much alive and very much in motion. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, the Mandrake was a magical plant which was reputed to shine like a candle at night and thrive particularly well near the gallows. When pulled from the earth, it uttered uncanny shrieks, and according to Shakespeare “living mortals hearing them ran mad.” ”

“ Have the plants souls and spirits? No man who has carefully and conscientiously studied them can wholly deny it. They exhibit a pluck, a determination, a moral perseverance which awaken all our admiration. Where we are weak, they are strong. Where men would lie down and die, they go steadily forward. When a plant perishes in the struggle for existence, it is because the odds have been too great. To make the most of heredity and environment is an axiomatic rule in plantdom. ”

“ After a thoughtful consideration of such facts as these, only the blindest prejudice can continue to laugh at plant intelligence. Why then has the world of human thought been so long and reluctant to acknowledge it? ”

“ Yet the flowers bloom today much as they did on the hillsides of Greece and Babylon, and man, with all his century-accumulated wisdom, seems but to have seen the outer edge of their real lives.
The superstitious veneration of various flowers is an ancient and peculiarly charming expression of man’s innate appreciation of the beautiful. He who condemns as idolaters the flower-worshippers of ancient ages may well look upon himself with critical eyes. ”

“ Music is a language—a species of soft, dreamy speech which makes up for its lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty and harmony which can best be described as divine. Indeed, the ancient Greeks made music an all-inclusive term for the higher conceptions of life. ”

“ Many people have no hesitancy in ascribing considerable intelligence to the higher animals; why do they balk at making the same concession to plants? If you concede intelligence to a single animal, you concede some measure of brain-power to all animals down to the one-celled Amoeba, and so must grant the same favour to the plant world. Plants and animals, besides having many habits in common, in their simplest forms are often indistinguishable. Both reduce themselves to single-celled masses of protoplasm. ”

“ Think of all the hardy trees which dwell in the high and cold places of the earth—places that are so exposed and desolate that the trees and plants find it necessary to contract themselves into the smallest possible compass, often living largely underground. On the other hand, think of the death-defying Cacti which live in infernos of the desert heat and dryness and yet put forth flowers of joy. ”

“ In all probability, there were no bright-hued flowers before the advent of pollen-eating insects. In the beginning, at least, flowers were developed as the signs by which plants advertised their wares. “We will make ourselves luringly attractive,” reasoned the plants. “We will add to our bright-coloured petals the sweet delights of nectar and honey. While the insect is eating at our table, we will shower his back with pollen and, going forth to some floral neighbour, he will unwittingly become the marriage priest of our race.” ”

“ To certain minds, the sighing of the wind through a Pine forest is more exquisitely expressive than a hundred breath-blown symphonies. When men cannot agree as to what is music among the sounds produced by their self-created instruments, dare they lightly ignore the many pleasing sounds which accompany the operations of Nature? ”

“ This would suggest that plant myths are founded mainly on true and inherent facts rather than on passing fancies. Almost all the nations have chosen the Rose for the queen of the floral court, and therefore the most fitting symbol of love. The White Lily has purity written on its spotless petals, and could never stand for anything else, anywhere. ”

“ Life, law and love are divine and bind man to all creation. He is spiritually as well as physically related to the plants. In the past, he has endeavoured to set himself apart from Nature and look down upon her as upon another world. Because he has a brain, he has imagined that anything which has none cannot possibly possess an intelligence and an inner life. To uphold this theory he has shut his eyes to a thousand denying facts.
All plants and animals of whatever kind begin life on exactly the same level. The wayside Daisy and the Human Being both start their earthly careers as single cells. ”

“ To a person on a country road, the wayside trees and flowers are too often mere happenings or creations. Their ways are so quiet and undemonstrative, that, if he has never been taught differently, he rarely thinks of classifying them as independent, free-acting beings. The fact that they are anchored to the soil seems to remove them from the realm of self-willed creation. Yet why should it? Are fishes not doomed to pass all their days in the chemical combination of hydrogen and oxygen we call water? Does not the delicate Canary die if the air surrounding it goes below a certain temperature? ”

“ Until the plants can describe to us their inner emotions, we can never definitely know whether they have real feelings, and if they parallel the human variety in any degree. But just as we have become able to read a man’s mental processes by his facial expressions, [Pg 200] tone of voice and bodily posture, so we can guess at plant emotion by external manifestations. When a flower greets the morning sun with expanded petals, uplifted head and a generally bright appearance, why should we not say it is happy and contented? ”

“ Man’s mind has developed at the expense of [Pg 206] man’s body. The plants always maintain an admirable balance between the two. There are degenerates and unscrupulous individuals among them, but they never forget that their first duty is to themselves. Self-culture is with them a passion. Whoever heard of a plant over-eating or over-drinking or giving way to any of those indulgent vices which are the bane of the human world? They have their faults, but they are sources of strength rather than weakness. ”