30 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



see how the leaves of one tree look fitted on the boughs 

 of another. Boundless is the wealth of Flora's lap ; the 

 ingenuity of man has been weaving wreaths out of it for 

 ages, and still the bottom of the sack is not yet. Nor 

 have we got much news of the dandelion. For I sit on 

 the thrown timber under the trees and meditate, and I 

 want something more : I want the soul of the flowers. 



The bee and the butterfly take their pollen and their 

 honey, and the strange moths so curiously coloured, like 

 the curious colouring of the owls, come to them by night, 

 and they turn towards the sun and live their little day, 

 and their petals fall, and where is the soul when the 

 body decays ? I want the inner meaning and the under- 

 standing of the wild flowers in the meadow. Why are 

 they ? What end ? What purpose ? The plant knows, 

 and sees, and feels ; where is its mind when the petal 

 falls? Absorbed in the universal dynamic force, or 

 what ? They make no shadow of pretence, these beauti- 

 ful flowers, of being beautiful for my sake, of bearing 

 honey for me ; in short, there does not seem to be any 

 kind of relationship between us, and yet — as I said just 

 now — language does not express the dumb feelings of 

 the mind any more than the flower can speak. I want to 

 know the soul of the flowers, but the word soul does not 

 in the smallest degree convey the meaning of my wish. 

 It is quite inadequate ; I must hope that you will grasp 

 the drift of my meaning. All these life-laboured mono- 

 graphs, these classifications, works of Linnaeus, and our 

 own classic Darwin, microscope, physiology, and the 

 flower has not given us its message yet. There are a 

 million books ; there are no books : all the books have 

 to be written. What a field ! A whole million of books 

 have got to be written. In this sense there are hardly 

 a dozen of them done, and these mere primers. The 



