Whenever
that is done a fresh impetus is given to human progress. There are a
million books, and yet with all their aid I cannot tell you the colour of
the May dandelion. There are three greens at this moment in my mind: that
of the leaf of the flower-de-luce, that of the yellow iris leaf, and that
of the bayonet-like leaf of the common flag. With admission to a million
books, how am I to tell you the difference between these tints? So many,
many books, and such a very, very little bit of nature in them! Though we
have been so many thousand years upon the earth we do not seem to have
done any more as yet than walk along beaten footpaths, and sometimes
really it would seem as if there were something in the minds of many men
quite artificial, quite distinct from the sun and trees and
hills--altogether house people, whose gods must be set in four-cornered
buildings. There is nothing in books that touches my dandelion.
It grows, ah yes, it grows! How does it grow? Builds itself up somehow of
sugar and starch, and turns mud into bright colour and dead earth into
food for bees, and some day perhaps for you, and knows when to shut its
petals, and how to construct the brown seeds to float with the wind, and
how to please the children, and how to puzzle me. Ingenious dandelion! If
you find out that its correct botanical name is _Leontodon taraxacum_ or
_Leontodon dens-leonis_, that will bring it into botany; and there is a
place called Dandelion Castle in Kent, and a bell with the inscription--
John de Dandelion with his great dog
Brought over this bell on a mill cog
--which is about as relevant as the mere words _Leontodon taraxacum_.
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