Pg. 610
610 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by
civic chain, a token of honours to be domestically remembered through an illimitable future.
This is, as far as we know, all that can be told, with veracity and honour, of the Life of a Salmon.
CHIPS.
THE WORLD’S FAIREST ROSE.
There was once a mighty queen, in whose garden grew the choicest flowers of every season of the year, the fairest of every clime. But, she loved the roses most of all, and of them she had the greatest variety, from the wild thorn with green, apple-scented leaves to the most beautiful rose of Provence. They grew up the palace walls, twined around the columns and over the windows, in along the passages and up to the ceiling in every hall; and the roses mingled together in odour, form, and colour.
But, care and sorrow dwelt within; the queen lay on a bed of sickness, and the physicians announced that she must die.
“She may yet be saved!” said the wisest among them. “Bring to her the fairest rose of the world, that one which is the expression of the highest and purest love. Let it come before her eyes ere they close, and she will not die.”
And young and old came from all around, bringing roses—the fairest that bloomed in every garden; but the rose was not among them. From the bower of Love they might bring flowers; but what rose there, was the expression of the highest, the purest love?
And the poets sang of the world’s fairest rose—each one naming his own; and there went a message far over the land, to every heart that beat in love—a message to every rank and to every age.
“No one has yet named the flower,’’ said the sage. “No one has pointed out the place on which it grew up in all its glory. It is not the rose from Romeo and Juliet’s tomb, nor from Valborg’s grave, though these roses will ever breathe fragrance through legend and song. It is not the rose which bloomed from Winkelried’s bloody lances: from the hallowed blood which wells out from “the breast of the hero dying for his fatherland; although no death is more sweet, and no rose redder than is the blood which then flows forth. Nor is it that wonderful flower for whose sake man gives up years and days and long sleepless nights, in the solitary closet, aye, sacrifices his fresh life to cultivate—the magic rose of science.”
“I know where it blooms,” said a happy mother who came with her tender infant to the queen’s bedside. “I know where the world’s fairest rose is found!—the rose which is the expression of the highest and the purest love. It blooms on the glowing cheeks of my sweet child, when, refreshed with sleep, it opens its eyes and laughs toward me in the fulness of its love.”
“Fair is that rose,” said the sage, “but there is one still more beautiful.”
“Yes, far more beautiful!” said one of the women. “I have seen it; a purer, holier rose blooms not on earth. But it was pale, as the leaves of the tea-rose. On the cheeks of the queen I saw it. She had laid her royal crown aside, and went herself with her sick child, watching with it through the long sad night. She wept over it, kissed it, and prayed to God for it, as a mother prays in the hour of affliction.”
“Holy and wonderful in its power is sorrow’s white rose, but still that is not the one.”
“No! the world’s fairest rose I saw before the altar of the Lord,” said the pious old bishop. “I saw it shining as though the face of an angel appeared. The young maidens went up to the Lord’s table, to renew their baptismal covenant; and the roses glowed, and the roses paled upon their fresh cheeks. A young girl stood there; in the fulness of her soul’s purity and love she looked up to her God. That was the expression of the purest and the highest love!”
“Blessed was she,” said the sage; “but no one has yet named the world’s fairest rose.”
A child came into the room—the Queen’s little son. Tears stood in his eyes and on his cheeks. He carried a large open book, with velvet binding and large silver clasps. “Mother!” said the little one, “oh, just listen to what I have read here!” And the child seated itself by the bed, and read from the Book of Him who gave himself up to death on the cross, that all men might be saved, even generations yet unborn. “There is no greater love than this!”
A rosy gleam passed over the queen’s cheeks; her eyes became bright and clear; for she saw unfolding itself from the pages of the Book the “World’s Fairest Rose.”
“I see it!” said she. “He will never die who looks upon that Rose, the fairest flower of earth!”
WALKING-STICKS.
Whether it was a cripple or a dandy, an old gentleman or a young gentleman, who first invented walking-sticks, cannot now be determined. That the pilgrim of the Middle Ages used a staff we know well from song and story;—a stout, strong, serviceable staff, shod with iron, which stood no nonsense; for it was intended not merely to support the pilgrim when weary, and to aid the ascent and descent of hills and mountains; but to quell the familiarities of rough wayfarers. There was a protuberance a short distance below the top, to afford a firm grasp; and the upper part formed a hollow tube, in which
Lauryn
Sean
Matt
Taylor Posik
These final words by Dickens (though short in nature) are very captivating, especially how he says “as far as we know”. There is an impact in words here many readers will miss, but it is very important to the story. The message in this story is that there is beauty in not knowing, whether it be that we’re missing a key to a simple question or perhaps not knowing the answer to a larger one. Dickens’ goal here is to emphasize that we should envy the salmon, as they live life ignorant to ideas of existentialism or philosophy, finding joy in life simply by doing what they choose and/or what they are guided to do by instinct.