Editor's Preface 



the earth and it shall teach thee^ and the 

 fishes of the sea and they shall declare to 

 thee!'* This is exactly what he seems to 

 have done ; he went straight to the flowers 

 — -for the most part the commonest every-day 

 flowers — and asked them to tell him the secret 

 of their beauty^ and he got his answer^ and 

 the answer was^ that there was not a line 

 of colour in any part^ not an outline in any 

 petals not a curve in any leaf^ that could be 

 spared or altered ; every such line of colour^ 

 outline^ and curve had its work to do and 

 did it^ not only in the best^ but in the only 

 possible way. He must have worked long^ 

 and steadily and patiently^ but he had his 

 reward; when he found out the secret of 

 beauty in one plants he found in it also the 

 key to the beauty in another ; the study of 

 the Purple Crocus in his Nottingham meadows^ 

 or of the Golden Crocus in his garden^ helped 

 him to find analogies of beauty in the Snow- 

 drops Snowflake^ Lily^ and Daflodil; and he 

 had his further reward in the pleasant 

 memories of the beauties he had studied^ 

 which enabled him to enjoy them^ and to 

 write of them even in his sick-room and on 



his death - bed^ from which he wrote the 



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