He observed that trees invite human beings to delight in their beauty, though they also complain that certain people “greedily pluck us, and tear us, and sometimes breake off some of our Branches to get our Fruits . . .” They “love us too much,” he heard them lamenting, as the trees cautioned human beings against an exercise of untempered desire. “Too much love to Creatures abates love to God,” they warned.55
