He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
–The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure 10: The Naval Treaty
Happy 160th birthday Arthur Conan Doyle. We are forever in your debt for your gift of Sherlock Holmes. #IsThereCake pic.twitter.com/4jhH2VfV5e
— Baker Street Journal (@BakerStJournal) May 22, 2019