Prayer - George MacDonald: Lilith

More than that I cannot tell you. If you know it, you know it; if you do not, you do not. Could you not teach me to know a prayer flower when I see it? I said.

I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? You would not know it of yourself and itself! Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise.

But I did see that the flower was different from any flower I had ever seen before; therefore I knew that I must be seeing a shadow of the prayer in; and a great awe came over me to think of the heart listening to the flower.

George MacDonald: Lilith

Mr Raven and Mr Vane holding a conversation over the flower from people praying in the little cemetery