she was beginning to learn what mattered in life. Citing the Biblical wisdom her mother had quoted to her a few years earlier—“there is nothing new under the sun”—Wilder made a point that would serve as the moral heart of her later books: It is the simple things of life that make living worth while, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest and living close to nature. There are no hothouse blossoms that can compare in beauty and fragrance with my bouquet of wild flowers.
