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 thei 
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? Whatpurpose? 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 Linnzus, and our 
own classic Darwin, microscope, physiology, and the 
flower has not given us its message yet. There area 
million books ; there are no books: all the books have 
to be written. Whata 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 
