The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-07-18
Legend of the Weeping Willow.

Logicians say that reason is the great.
est gift of God to man, but no one knows
| better than q newspaper editor how
little the gift is appreciated by the ma
jority of mankind. He sees immense
bodies of men swayed to and fro by the
breath of the demagogue, whole COM
the political trickster as the spider man.
ages the farthermost line of his filmy
web, and even in the realm of science it
is his daily experience that the implicitly
received dogmas of yesterday are buried
III the great upheavals of to-day.
The child wonders how the delicate
spiders web can bind securely the power
full insect, just as we wonder how the
weakest illusions will command the re-
spcct of the strongest minds. Here is
an illustration of this in the history of
our common weeping willow. The story
goes that Pope the poet, sitting in his
garden overhanging the Thames, saw n
piece of wicker-basket along the river
bank, and observing that piece was
sprouting since it had been in the water,
he took the growing piece and planted
it. This is the origin of Popes weeping
willow, which is also said to be the
parent of all the weeping willows of
Christendom. If the "greatest gift"
the one by which man is distinguished
from the beast, had been applied to this
story, the improbability of hamper
basket remaining green long enough for
any part of it to grow, after being worn
out and cast away, would have been at
once seen. In addition to this is the
fact that basket work is never made of
the weeping willow. The branches are
as brittle as pieces of glass, and he would
be rare genius in the basket-maker's
art who could construct basket out of
them. Still, there was certain mystery
about the weeping willow, and until it
was cleared up it was much easier to
believe the Pope story than to use lit
tie reason in the matter.
But at length facts have broken down
the poets legend. Plant collectors have
found in Japan the parent of our droop-
ing friend. Already in American gar
dens the Japan willow is growing, and,
save in the pendulous habit, proves to
be identical with the weeping willow of
Pope's Twickenham garden, and there is
no longer any doubt but to this ancient
howery land, and not to the waters of
the modern Babylon, are we indebted
for this popular tree. How it got to Eu-
rope is not yet clear. Possibly we have
it through some of the early Dutch nav
igators, or, may be, through some of the
attaches to Staunton's Anglo-C Chinese
embassy, who are already credited with
some introductions; but, at any rate,
the Pope basket-story has completely
broken down.
How many more of these pleasant lit
tie stories are to vanish? Was the seed
of the Peters chestnut furnished by
Washington Did Washington chop
The cherry tree? Did the Indians get
heir red rags under the Kensington elm
rec! Are the thousands of trees which
IN so many American homesteads have
sprung from the switches which were
lsed as riding whips" by our grand
mothers, as apocryphal as this little
piece OF willow history? 1t would, in
Iced, seem rs if the innocent men of
trees and flowers are no more to be trust !
ID than any of the rest of us. We are
vi ready to believe anything, and they
lnoW it as well as other folk.