How many other curious connections there must be among natural occurrences that nobody ever dreamt of! It was in the country one learnt about such things; in the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers.

Nature was the great school, after all.

History and geography were all very well in their way, but what food for the soul was there in knowing whether Norway was an island or a peninsula, or on what date some silly king had had his crown put on?
What did it matter, after all?
Those were the facts he despised; facts that had no significance for him whatever, that left him exactly as they found him first.

The sky and the birds and the flowers taught him lessons that were worth more than all the histories and geographies that were ever written.

The schoolroom was a desert, arid and unsatisfying; whereas the garden, the enclosed space which held stained cups of beauty and purple gold-eyed bells, that was a jewelled sanctuary.