Hans Christian Andersen

“ With some of the roots she intended to make coffee for herself; others she was going to sell for money to the druggist.
'But beauty is a higher thing!' said the Apple Tree Branch. 'Only the chosen few can be admitted into the realm of beauty. There is a difference among plants, just as there is a difference among men.'
And then the Sunbeam spoke of the boundless love of the Creator, as manifested in the creation, and of the just distribution of things in time and in eternity.
'Yes, yes, that is your opinion,' the Apple Branch persisted. ”

“ The eldest children carefully gathered the stalks on which hung the white feathery ball, formed by the flower that had run to seed; and this loose, airy wool-flower, which is a beautiful object, looking like the finest snowy down, they held to their mouths, and tried to blow away the whole head at one breath ”

“ No one bound them into a nosegay, they were too common; for they might be found even among the paving-stones, shooting up everywhere like the rankest weeds, and they had the ugly name of 'dandelion', or 'the devil's milk-pail'.
'Poor despised plants!' said the Apple Branch. 'It is not your fault that you are what you are, that you are so common, and that you received the ugly name you bear. But it is with plants as with men—there must be a difference!'
'A difference?' said the Sunbeam ”