“
Now reading
Tulipomania
And who on earth would blame them, those Dutch merchants prepared to give up everything they owned for the pearl of great price that is a tulip bulb? What house wallowing in canal mud, like a tall ship marooned in harbour, could hold its own, however secure its moorings, against the ground-breaking tulip egg that incubates in spring, sprouting shoots of exotic plumage: blue-red feathers rippled with pink, streaked with tangerine? And who, with his priorities in place, would hesitate to exchange his very home for the tulip that leaves no blood-red trail of perfume but proceeds to make its bed in the tactile gloss of satin sheets? What whaleboned gown, what silk chemise, slithering to the boards of a lead-windowed bedroom, could compare with this stranger bearing arcane knowledge from a stream-splashed crag in Tien Shan or the snow-melts of Tashkent? Who wouldn't want to fade out in a blaze of glory? Who wouldn't sacrifice himself on an altar of urn-shaped tulips, a pyre Who wouldn't be the better for the lesson of those petals, dropping off like share prices, precious metal values, leaving time to meditate on fortune, speculate on loss?