Traces of such sentiments can be found, I fancy, even in
other painters and poets. I do not question that the poet Wo Wo (that
ornament of the eighth dynasty) may have written the words: "Even the most
undignified vegetable is for this person capable of producing meditations
not to be exhibited by much weeping." But, I do not therefore admit that
a Western gentleman named Wordsworth (who made a somewhat similar remark)
had plagiarised from Wo Wo, or was a mere Occidental fable and travesty of
that celebrated figure. I do not deny that Tinishona wrote that exquisite
example of the short Japanese poem entitled "Honourable Chrysanthemum in
Honourable Hole in Wall." But I do not therefore admit that Tennyson's
little verse about the flower in the cranny was not original and even
sincere.
It is recorded (for all I know) of the philanthropic Emperor Bo, that when
engaged in cutting his garden lawn with a mower made of alabaster and
chrysoberyl, he chanced to cut down a small flower; whereupon, being much
affected, he commanded his wise men immediately to take down upon tablets
of ivory the lines beginning: "Small and unobtrusive blossom with ruby
extremities." But this incident, touching as it is, does not shake my
belief in the incident of Robert Burns and the daisy; and I am left with
an impression that poets are pretty much the same everywhere in their
poetry--and in their prose.
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