Mysteriousblackredwine第六章.docVIP

Chapter 6 The Hatred of a Tulip-fancier ??? From that moment Boxtels interest in tulips was no longer astimulus to his exertions, but a deadening anxiety. 　　Henceforth all his thoughts ran only upon the injury whichhis neighbour would cause him, and thus his favouriteoccupation was changed into a constant source of misery to him. 　　Van Baerle, as may easily be imagined, had no sooner begunto apply his natural ingenuity to his new fancy, than hesucceeded in growing the finest tulips. Indeed; he knewbetter than any one else at Haarlem or Leyden -- the twotowns which boast the best soil and the most congenialclimate -- how to vary the colours, to modify the shape, andto produce new species. 　　He belonged to that natural, humorous school who took fortheir motto in the seventeenth century the aphorism utteredby one of their number in 1653, -- To despise flowers is tooffend God.From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the mostexclusive of all schools, worked out the following syllogismin the same year: --To despise flowers is to offend God. 　　The more beautiful the flower is, the more does one offendGod in despising it. 　　The tulip is the most beautiful of all flowers. 　　Therefore, he who despises the tulip offends God beyondmeasure.By reasoning of this kind, it can be seen that the four orfive thousand tulip-growers of Holland, France, andPortugal, leaving out those of Ceylon and China and theIndies, might, if so disposed, put the whole world under theban, and condemn as schismatics and heretics and deservingof death the several hundred millions of mankind whose hopesof salvation were not centred upon the tulip. 　　We cannot doubt that in such a cause Boxtel, though he wasVan Baerles deadly foe, would have marched under the samebanner with him. 　　Mynheer van Baerle and his tulips, therefore, were in themouth of everybody; so much so, that Boxtels namedisappeared for ever from the list of the notabletulip-growers in Holland, and those of Dort were nowrepresented by