New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-04-03
JOHNNY BOUQUETS WALKS.
RAMBLEs ABOUT NEw-oRLEANS

A HURST OF eKNTrMgNT AND PHiLOsoPHY-TYP7CAL
AMERICAN CITIEs-sTRKET SCENES IN NEw-oR-
LRANs-A CHAT WITH JACK wHARToN-rHR
NgW.oRrKANs CUSTOM HOUSE AND It's CHIEF
OFFICER.
Nv walk this week Is somewhat abroad. but the
bouquet trade at home in the hands OF my neef-do-
we'll partner and next week shall be there to get
an account of sales and stewardship from him. For
myself. ever alert to keep up with the changing
Styles am in New Orleans botanizing and sending
homo roots and blooms
Here the magnolia trees have bright varnish
upon their leaves the green matter or chlorophyl,
being inciosed in cells with Transparent sides like
glass, which makes them glsten like plate-glass
window All there is shopkeepng in flowers, and
the most innocent things IN nature are somewhere
ION the make"
JOHNNY sENTIMENTALIzEs.
I wonder what is to become of the vaporabie parts
Of plants. Shall they die utterly and We who draw
them into our nostris for luxury and live by their
d, patch, exist utterly No wonder there are natu-
ralists who 60 astray in faith, not for much wIs-
dom and in pride of learning, but in clearer sim
plicity and more universal sympathy. The religion
of hero, whose life was known and whose moral
sayings remain is plain and easy to the multitude
to follow, as were the miracles He did to see. But
even He was sensitive as poet to tue lessons Of
~ mock their theology, De set up the common lily
Of the field as moro royal than king
Scarcely one of His parallels is based upon the
life of animals. The horse. the ass the OK the fox.
the swine. oil common to His country, drew neither
compliment nor illustration from Him; while the
mustard seed, the cedar on Lebanon the sower SOW
ing good seed and tares. the sparrows Gin the
branches of the trees the Of diviner than
the Sabbath day. the turning into the color OF
the grape, the perfumes of frankincense and myrrh
ct the Nativity. and palms strewn like worshippng
intelhRences before the Son of Humanity and the
night of agony in the Garden, when every animal
disciple slept, and only the flowers awakened and
were in tears bespeak the tender instinct of the d.
vine Botanist. with healing in His wings.
These things are my Sunday thoughts, when peo-
ple of harder faith buy no flowers ON the Sabbath
day, like those Pharisees who plucked no corn. My
market them is closed the beautiful flowers preach
in vain on that day to preachers and Christians; the
botanical gardens jealousy closed up. lest Parson
Jasper should lose few hearers Oh the subject of
"Tbe Stunt do move" Then unfold the leaves
Of tho ancient book grown in Jerusalem among the
olive trees, and find consolation for being nobody.
CHRIST THE ARTIST.
Among the things think of is the obtuseness OF
what man calls Art few years ago Mr.. Ruskin
announced as beautiful discovery the fitness of the
tint of the olive leaf for decoration and wall paper
He received large credit for it, and olive is
bodys wallis and has passed into textures and dyes
bat the tint Of the olive is every leaf Of my old
bible where the Botan,st went up on the Mount of
Olives far from the pufple of the Roman world and
the fash of Jewish jewelry and with the cool but
unappreciated shadow of the olive branches CON-
posing His spirit az they softened His portrait He
expressed the taste without word of artistic Pc
dantry il has taken nineteen hundred years of
painters and artists to grow up to-.
Rsphaes and Correggios have wrestled with their
conception of Jesus aud put Him in robes of brick
dust tint on haloes of the sun and moon but who
has thought of the olive leaves. familiar to Him
the pale olive of the tea field to the decorative art
of Japani
Thus Nature has kept the Christian religion alive.
In the growth of taste and observation it Of small
consideration whether macy thousand men were fed
on two fishes and small lOaves but Of great In
uence that the Model of the modern world nowhere
offended Nature either in the utterauce of false
theory, mistakes as to natural phenomena, passion
for dogma. artifcialty of mind or address, or any
asceticsm, or any snObbery. false society, proud
priests, and Indifference to nature and her wants,
were the objects of His indignation.
Taste. Of which much 10 said. is the lesson of
plants and plant-eating things only to man. Taste
10 what things wild and common teach to artificial
man. Taste is in every natural movement of the
Botanist who led our era out from shams. How has
that been appreciated by the artificial churches
planted on the merely physical and heroic part OF
that Mans lifei BY forgetting every natural
element and incident in it and leaving US
chiefly the bloody parts of that pleasant. healthy
life among the brooks and fields and in the cool
pulpits of the everopen syDagogues where He
retreated from the sun and talked from the loving
fulness of His mind andheart Nine hundred years
~ Il Al. h. ,wko
cross and counting the drops Of blood paid In the
common penalty Of life. The cathedrals stained
10 all their windows with the one monOtonous MUIR
der of the Man who aimed to draw man to Heaven
through the souls in the seeds and the simplicity in
the blooms. Preachers who know no Nature or
knowing do not feel II, are Improbable, tasteloss
aud stale. because our age 10 learning taste from the
passages in the story ofits Founder
sni not from the passages Of violence and passion
YLowRR-sRLLINa AND LITERATURE
. It y astonishing how, since mixed the bouquet |
business Up with this literature" I am always |
getting "of my nut" Writing for a living must be |
an unhealthy pursuit because IL makes a machine |
of the brain. and thinking about IL so much should
think. would finally make man intense. intocrant.
and. Of course. selfish. To me it 10 q brand-new |
amusement and beguiles me for the present like a |
monkey In a cocsauut grove. Let mo show you |
New-Orleans nv fellow Cockneyl
TYPICAL AERICAN CITIES.
New-Orleans is one a two bewildering American |
cities to Northern man. the other beng San Fran
cisco. Add NewYork to the list, and there three
cities, equally unlike, equally original.
developed by the same practical energetic quality Of
BRAIN upon strong. dssimilar natural conditions.
The American cty-buder is not rigid like an
and he prOpels his forces through
forms, traditions and temperapeuts he finds on tue
spot careful to avoid bigotry and glad to accede to