RED AND INDEFINITES 



" I want the inner meaning and the understanding 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 beautiful flowers, of being beautiful for my 

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

 kind of relationship understood between us, and yet . . . 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 / . . . All these 

 life-laboured monographs, these classifications, works of Linnaeus, and 

 our own classic Darwin, microscope, physiology — and the flower has not 

 given us its message yet." — Richard Jeffries. 



365 



