Editor's Preface 



would love the plants in his garaen ; and 

 so would become a better gardener. 



I said that Forbes Watson was a deeply 

 religious man : his religion permeates the whole 

 book, and indeed is the key to a great deal of 

 what he says. It was the feeling that God 

 had made everything very good that made 

 him love His works, not only for their use- 

 fulness, but for their beauty. 'There were a 

 few instances in which he could not see the 

 beauty, but he was quite sure that it was 

 there. And it was this same religious feeling 

 that made him see a great deal which others 

 would not look for. It has been said that the 

 book is too fanciful and sentimental, especially 

 in attributing to flowers such characters as 

 purity, passion, innocence, sensuousness, &c. y 

 but it is the bare fact that Forbes Watson 

 saw these things, and because he saw them, 

 and thought it almost the moral duty of others 

 to see the same, that he recorded his feelings ; 

 the flowers had been real teachers of good 

 things to him, and he felt it a religious duty 

 to hand on the lessons to others. 



Something must be said about the literary 

 style of the book. Had his life been spared 

 and he had given himself to authorship, he 



XIV 



