Arthur Symons & The Whispering Glasshouse
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
February 28, 1865
Dearest Gardeners,
On this day, the world was given Arthur William Symons (books by this author)—poet, critic, and man of letters—whose pen could turn even the dripping panes of a Victorian glasshouse into objects of romance and intrigue.
Those of us who haunt the hothouse walkways, brushing against the heated breath of orchids and violets, will find in Symons a kindred spirit. For he knew well that beneath glass lies not simply cultivation but concealment—an art as much about society as about soil.
In his tender verses in Lillian, he places the humblest wildwood violet within the artifices of greenhouse life. There, the flowers, cosseted and coaxed, forget the honest kiss of sun and the bracing chatter of wind.
This was a sweet white wildwood violet
I found among the painted slips that grow
Where, under hot-house glass, the flowers forget
How the sun shines, and how the cool winds blow.
What a delicious metaphor, and one not lost upon the discerning eye.
Are not hothouses themselves the ballrooms of the garden world?
Orchids, lilies, palms, and violets—all arrayed in gloved perfection, carefully shielded from the rough democracy of the meadow.
How quickly they learn the manners expected of them beneath glass domes and misting jets.
And, dare we whisper, how many a horticulturalist has conducted their own intrigues under the pretext of “checking the boilers” or “rearranging the specimens.”
Yet Symons does not mock; instead, he mourns, gently, for the exile of natural things.
The violet, born of wind-tossed woods, is robbed of its native freedom, much in the way society can sometimes overlay its polish upon an unsuspecting soul. One almost hears Vita Sackville-West mutter in sympathy: a flower is loveliest when it remembers its wildness.
Still, what drama!
Without the glasshouse, would we have such stagecraft for winter blooms—roses in February, violets for Christmas, or flamboyant orchids to shock one’s guests beneath the gaslights of Mayfair?
Thus, dearest readers, let us not dismiss the glasshouse as mere structure, but see it also as theater.
In it, each leaf may posture, each violet may blush, and each gardener may play director to the eternal play between nature and artifice.
And if, like Symons, you pause before a pale blossom pressed against the steamy pane, know you are gazing not just at a flower—but at a small society of secrets, composed under glass.
Yours ever among the orchids,
Jennifer
