He would call himself a Master of Flowers. He would claim the
rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate him, for you
know a doctor always seeks to prolong the troubles of his victims.
He would cut, bend, and twist you into those impossible positions
which he thinks it proper that you should assume. He would
contort your muscles and dislocate your bones like any osteopath.
He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and
thrust wires into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you
with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water
would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint.
It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two
or more weeks longer than would have been possible without his
treatment. Would you not have preferred to have been killed at once
when you were first captured? What were the crimes you must have
committed during your past incarnation to warrant such punishment
in this?

The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more
appalling than the way they are treated by Eastern Flower
Masters. The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the
ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and America, to be
thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous;
if strung together they might garland a continent. Beside this
utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes
insignificant. He, at least, respects the economy of nature,
selects his victims with careful foresight, and after death does
honour to their remains. In the West the display of flowers seems
to be a part of the pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment.
Whither do they all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over?
Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly