The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-17
xAsrER DECORATION.

An Eastern bishop . few years ago
deprecated the use Of flowers a. funerals
and in the church On Easter Day. Why
depreease the free use Of flowers in Easter
decorassons7 Spring Is the resurrection
time Of nature from the trance Of winter
The evergreen is welcome feature Of the
church decorations in Christmas season,
and why should Tot TIE churches a.
Easter be decorated with the FIRST gsrisnds
Of spring?
As for flowers q. funerals, il il easily
possible by the extrsvsgsnce Of friends 10
overdo IL, bit when flowers are limited IN
number and variety and are placed above
the heart Of one dead. whose soul rsjoiced
when his living eyes fell upon the lovely
bright-eyed blossoms Of field, garden OF
forest, what Is more fitting or delicate at
funeral Surely better a wealth Of lovely
flowers in the room Of death Or at ths
grave than the stock habilirnents Of woe
we see when the bereaved are robed IN
repulsire mourning and the walls are
hung with black and the door vreathed in
gloom II the dead loved the flowers they
should De his cover. and the dead who did
not love the flowers in life IS hardly worth
long fe.vent mourning at the hands Of
the living. He loved the flowers. the
birds and little children" was the simple
tribute once paid 70 great and good
man The man Or woman who
goes down TO the grave without
ever having felt pleasure at the sight Of
al
rise in gladness as the early morning air
grows vocal with the sweet song of the
blessed birds; who never was tie willing
slave of merry little child, is either
very stupid man or he is Il. for treason.
stratagerns and spoils. One Of the finest
touches Of shakspeare's brief picture Of
Bsnquo and King Duncan is found in. these
lines:
Dun This castle hath pleasant seat; the air
Einbly and sweety recommends itssif
Upon our gentle senses
Ban This guest Of summer,
The tsmple-baunting rnsrtlst, does approve,
By his loved msnsionry, that TIE heavens
breath
Smells wooingly here; no iutty, frsezs,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made hs pendent bed and procresnt
cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt. have OBJ
served.
The air is delicate.
Duncan and Banquo say nothing fur
Their in the play worth noting; Duncan Is
murdered few hours later by his host;
Banquo few days later. and yet these
few lines make the reader certain that
both Duncan and Banquo were men Of
gentle hearts and refined manners. Muir
der or brutal designs of any sort could not
be harbored by men of such fine sensibil-
ity. II Richard or Iago had spoken as
Banquo did it would have been not the
expression of sympathy with King Dun
cans feeling, but in hypocritical agree
ment with sovereign for whose sent
ment they felt nothing but contempt.
Shakespeare did not make an aspiring,
intellectual villain like Richard feel any
sensibility TO the incorporeal air that de-
lighted Duncan or to the birds that Ban
quo had watched, even az our own Lincoln
did; he knew better; he knew that ener-
getic, Satanic scoundrels, like Richard and
Iago, waste no time or thought on the air
or the birds of the air; this streak of deli
cate sensiblbility would have spoiled the
picture of selfish villain incarnate. So
in a broad sense il is true that men with
out sensibility to the presence Of flowers,
birds and little children are either stupid
or men whose pictures ought to be in the
rogues' gallery.
Flowers are good at Easter. for they are
symbols of that eternal goodness that in
various forms has resurrection out knows
not death. Flowers are better than black
at a funeral, even as a reverent kiss on the
brow of one you loved in life and clear up
to the gates of death is finer tribute to
departed worth than idle and boisterous
mourning, wailing and crashing of teeth.
Death calls for the dignity of resignation;
for certain gladness when you feel that
your departed lies dead upon the fields of
moral honor; not sufocating memory of
lifelong moral shame.