Normally I am loathe to pick the wildflowers about me for a vain display on my own tabletop, but a strong interest had been expressed to me, and so I picked them in her name, but before I brought them to her, a surprising realization caused me to pose them here on my table, first; later I found that it had been expressed amply by another man, more than a hundred years before.
“How fitting to have every day in a vase of water on your table the wild-flowers of the season which are just blossoming! Can any house be said to be furnished without them? Shall we be so forward to pluck the fruits of Nature and neglect her flowers? These are surely her finest influences. So may the season suggest the fine thoughts it is fitted to suggest. Shall we say, “A penny for your thoughts,” before we have looked into the face of Nature?
Let me know what picture she is painting, what poetry she is writing, what ode composing, now.”
— Thoreau.
I went on to pick many bouquets for her, and we both received them gratefully.
Black-eyed Susan, wild bergamot, red clover, orange day lily, Queen Anne’s lace, everlasting sweet-pea
