Tulip mania

“ But it is by no means the first time that fashion has turned ugliness into beauty and rarity into wealth.
In 1634 the rage for tulips among the Dutch was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the whole people turned to the production of tulips. As this mania increased, prices increased with it, until in 1635 merchants were known to have spent $40,000 in the purchase of forty tulips. At this time each species was sold by weight. ”

“ The merchant, as he turned away, told the astonished sailor that "it would have been cheaper for him to have breakfasted the Prince of Orange and all his court."
Another story of an English traveler is not less ludicrous. This gentleman was an amateur botanist, traveling to perfect himself in the study of his favorite science. Happening to see a large tulip root on a stand in the conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman, he quietly took out his penknife and began to peel off its coats; for he too took it for an onion, and wanted to discover of what species it was. ”

“ But the Dutch are to-day prouder of their tulips and their tulip beds than any other nation. In England they are still highly valued, and a tulip will produce more money than an oak. In 1800 rare bulbs sold for $75; and from that time the mania began to spread, so that in 1835 a tulip of the Miss Fanny Kemble species sold at public auction for $370. The principal horticulturist in England has on his catalogue tulips labeled at $1000 each; but this is an exception. The prices in England today for the best kinds are from $25 to $75, according to the rarity of the species. ”

“ How often did Boxtel, in the midst of tortures which no pen is able fully to describe,—how often did he feel an inclination to jump down into the garden during the night, 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 crime in the eyes of a genuine tulip-fancier; as to killing a man, it would not have mattered so very much. ”

“ Rosa was one of those women who are dejected by trifles; but who, in great emergencies, are supplied by the misfortune itself with the energy for combating, or with the resources for remedying it.
She went to her room, and cast a last glance about her, to see whether she had not been mistaken, and whether the tulip was not stowed away in some corner, where it had escaped her notice. But she sought in vain; the tulip was still wanting; the tulip was indeed stolen. ”

“ If I thus gave up the only and last resource which we possess, to the uncertain chances of the bad passions of anger and envy, I should never deserve to be forgiven. No, Rosa, no; to-morrow we shall come to a conclusion as to the spot to be chosen for your tulip; you will plant it according to my instructions; and as to the third sucker”—Cornelius here heaved a deep sigh—“watch over it, as a miser over his first or last piece of gold; as the mother over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood in his veins;—watch over it, Rosa! ”

“ Ah! if we had been able to carry it ourselves, Rosa, it would never have left my hands but to pass into yours; but this is a dream, which we must not entertain,” continued Cornelius with a sigh, “the eyes of strangers will see it flower to the last. And above all, Rosa, before the President has seen it, let it not be seen by any one. Alas! if any one saw the black tulip, it would be stolen.”
“Oh!”
“Did you not tell me yourself what you apprehend from your lover Jacob? people will steal one guilder, why not a hundred thousand?” ”

“ The tulips grew daily brighter in color and larger in size, and they gave out a delicious perfume like that of roses. They began, too, to bloom all the year round. And every night the little Fairy mothers caressed their babies and rocked them to sleep in the flower-cups.
The day came when the good old woman died, and the tulip-bed was torn up by folks who did not know about the Fairies, and parsley was planted there instead of the flowers. But the parsley withered, and so did all the other plants in the garden, and from that time nothing would grow there. ”

“ The tulips, thus favoured by a race of genii, retained their beauty much longer than any other flowers in the garden, whilst, though contrary to their nature, as the pixies breathed over them, they became as fragrant as roses, and so delighted at all was the old woman who kept the garden that she never suffered a single tulip to be plucked from its stem. ”

“ The tea rose beds round the sun-dial facing these borders are sheets of white, and golden, and purple, and wine-red pansies, with the dainty red shoots of the tea roses presiding delicately in their midst. The verandah steps leading down into this pansy paradise have boxes of white, and pink, and yellow tulips all the way up on each side, and on the lawn, behind the roses, are two big beds of every coloured tulip rising above a carpet of forget-me-nots. How very much more charming different-coloured tulips are together than tulips in one colour by itself! ”

“ Never had the love of the prisoner been more sincere than at the time at which we are now arrived, when in the contest between the black tulip and Rosa, the tulip had had to yield to her the first and foremost place in Cornelius’ heart. ”

“ I have three hundred of them in my loft.”
“To the devil with your tulips!” cried Cornelius; “you are worthy of each other: had I a hundred thousand millions of them, I would gladly give them for the one which you have just destroyed!”
“Ah! so,” Gryphus said, in a tone of triumph; “now there we have it. It was not your tulip you cared for. There was in that false bulb some witchcraft, perhaps some means of correspondence with conspirators against His Highness who has granted you your life. I always said they were wrong in not cutting your head off.”
“Father, father!” cried Rosa. ”

“ Indeed, he knew better than any one else at Haarlem or Leyden—the two towns which boast the best soil and the most congenial climate—how to vary the colours, to modify the shape, and to produce new species.
He belonged 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 most exclusive of all schools, worked out the following syllogism in the same year:—
“To despise flowers is to offend God. ”

“ What would the world say, when it heard that the black tulip was found, that it existed, and that it was the prisoner Van Baerle who had found it?
How Cornelius would have spurned the offer of his liberty in exchange for his tulip!
Day came, without any news; the tulip was not yet in flower.
The day passed as the night. Night came, and with it Rosa, joyous and cheerful as a bird.
“Well?” asked Cornelius.
“Well, all is going on prosperously. This night, without any doubt, our tulip will be in flower.” ”

“ And yet, if the truth must be told, this wretch, who had stolen what was the boast of man, and the dowry of a woman, did not consider himself as a thief. He had so intently watched this tulip, followed it so eagerly from the drawer in Cornelius’s dry-room to the scaffold of the Buytenhof, and from the scaffold to the fortress of Loewestein; he had seen it bud and grow in Rosa’s window, and so often warmed the air round it with his breath, that he felt as if no one had a better right to call himself its producer than he had ”

“ These unconcerned at one time had a craze for tulips,—then tulips were romantic; now they are not, and romance is gone. Now these folk merely order, or let their gardeners order, so many red and so many white, so many double, single, striped, or plain. There is no more romance now to them in tulip producing and buying than in grocery producing and buying: that is to say, they talk little more about the one than the other, their horticultural conversation is now centred on hybrid teas and herbaceous borders. It was not so a hundred years ago, tulips were then in fashion. ”

“ Only think, my dear Rosa, that the question is to carry out an enterprise which until now has been considered impossible, namely, that of making the great black tulip flower. Let us, therefore, take every possible precaution, so that in case of a failure we may not have anything to reproach ourselves with. ”

“ But on arriving in the great market-place Rosa at once stopped, a sudden thought had struck her, just as Homer’s Minerva seizes Achilles by the hair at the moment when he is about to be carried away by his anger.
“Good Heaven!” she muttered to herself, “I have made a grievous blunder; it may be I have ruined Cornelius, the tulip, and myself. I have given the alarm, and perhaps awakened suspicion. I am but a woman; these men may league themselves against me, and then I shall be lost. ”

“ All the tulip-fanciers—that is to say, all the intelligent people of Europe—will feel a thrill of excitement when the rumour spreads to the four quarters of the globe: The grand black tulip is found! ‘How is it called?’ the fanciers will ask.—‘Tulipa nigra Barlœnsis!’—‘Why Barlœnsis?’—‘After its grower, Van Baerle,’ will be the answer.—‘And who is this Van Baerle?’—‘It is the same who has already produced five new tulips: the Jane, the John de Witt, the Cornelius de Witt, etc.’ Well, that is what I call my ambition. It will cause tears to no one. ”

“ Oh thrice fool Boxtel! Would any one be separated from his bulbs? Would any one leave them at Dort, when one goes to the Hague? Could one live far from one’s bulbs, when they enclose the grand black tulip? ”

“ Before the wallflowers have finished flowering the tulips are out, the old-fashioned “cottage tulips,” many of them, tall and with large cup-like flowers—pink and crimson, brown and yellow, showy “parrots,” and delicate mauve feathered with white, purple-black, deep maroon; such a brilliant army those tulips make, with hundreds of them in bloom at once.
Before the tulip petals have fallen, the peonies have opened out great heavy heads of flowers that can’t keep upright. ”

“ The point is a very trifling one, no doubt, and it is extremely bold to find fault with our betters; but in the first place, we are busying ourselves wholly with trifles just now, and then the great work in question has been a source of so much pleasure and advantage to half the world, that no one heeds the misplaced tulip, unless it be some rustic bird-fancier. By supposing the flower
of the tulip-tree to be meant, the question would be entirely settled to the satisfaction of author, reader, and humming-bird also, who is very partial to those handsome blossoms of his native woods. ”

“ If I am lost that matters nothing,—but Cornelius and the tulip!”
She reflected for a moment.
“If I go to that Boxtel, and do not know him; if that Boxtel is not my Jacob, but another fancier, who has also discovered the black tulip; or if my tulip has been stolen by some one else, or has already passed into the hands of a third person;—if I do not recognize the man, only the tulip, how shall I prove that it belongs to me? On the other hand, if I recognise this Boxtel as Jacob, who knows what will come out of it? whilst we are contesting with each other, the tulip will die.” ”

“ We say the theft, for Isaac had simply made up his mind to steal the tulip; and as it grew in the most profound secrecy, and as, moreover, his word, being that of a renowned tulip-grower, would any day be taken against that of an unknown girl without any knowledge of horticulture, or against that of a prisoner convicted of high treason, he confidently hoped that, having once got possession of the bulb, he would be certain to obtain the prize; and then the tulip, instead of being called Tulipa nigra Barlœnsis, would go down to posterity under the name of Tulipa nigra Boxtellensis or Boxtellea. ”

“ This spirit is said to burn with still fiercer flame in the breasts of those whose pursuit would externally seem to be the most innocent in the world, and the least excitive of the bad passions—namely, among flower-fanciers. From some mysterious cause, it has been known to develop itself most flagrantly among tulip-collectors, insomuch that there are legends of Dutch devotees of this pursuit who have paid their thousands of dollars for a duplicate tuber, that they might have the satisfaction of crushing it under the heel. [28] This line of practice is not entirely alien to the book-hunter. ”

“ I can see it now as I write--or, more accurately, if I stop writing for a moment--for it is just outside the library window. The vulgar call it a tub--they would; actually it is the Tulip Garden. At least, the man says so. For the tulips have not bourgeoned yet. No, I am wrong. (That is the worst of using these difficult words.) They have bourgeoned, but they have not blossomed. Their heads are well above ground, they have swelled into buds, but the buds have not broken. So, for all I know, they may yet be sun-flowers. However, the man says they will be tulips; he was paid for tulips ”

“ There are to be seen the Duke of Toll tulip, the tulips called "simple precocious" in more than six hundred varieties; the "double precocious"; the late tulips, divided into unicolored, fine, superfine, and rectified; the fine, subdivided into violet, rose, and striped; then the monsters or parrots, the hybrids, the thieves; classified into a thousand orders of nobility and elegance; tinted with all the shades of color conceivable to the human mind ”