"I want the inner meaning and the understanding of the wildflowers 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.