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// Flowers for Daisy 
// Story: Those Lost at Golden Oak 
// by Nihil Savant 
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	Written over two hundred years ago, Flowers for Daisy is a personal favorite of mine. The story, on a surface level, is fairly chiche: two stallions love a mare named Daisy. (Daisy was a less common name back then.) One stallion, the more wealthy, attempts to court her by giving her favorite flowers to her, starting with a bouquet, but eventually giving her an entire garden. The other suitor, Whinny, simply treats her as friend and equal. Naturally, she falls in love with him and asks him to marry her.
Flowers for Daisy seems to be one of the first novels written with this plot, and was easily one of the best. Oddly, it’s the wealthy stallion, Golden Ring, that makes the story rise above its peers. The more time spent around him, the more readers get the impression that Golden Ring genuinely loves Daisy- he seems to know her as well as Whinny, occasionally recognizing and appreciating her interests, attitudes, and mannerisms. However, he struggles to express this, and gets embarrassed and angered whenever ponies point out his infatuation. His parents act similarly, refusing to praise anything he does, but rewarding him with expensive gifts. He tries wooing her only using expensive flowers, not because doesn’t love her, but because it’s the only way he knows how to express his love. While the reader knows the two would never be happy together, her rejection of him is absolutely heartbreaking. After she turns him down, he simply hangs his head and leaves, and never appears in the story again. The reader is left hoping someday he’ll find someone who can teach him the difference between giving presents and giving love.
Daisy is also a fairly interesting character. She’s unsure whether Golden Ring actually loves her or not. And when he starts giving her gifts, she has no idea how to repay him, or if she even should. She never once seems to return Golden Ring’s affections, and remains conflicted on how to view him. His generous gifts both to her and several of the town’s poor contrast with his sour and elitist disposition. Actions may speak louder, but his words directly contradict them. Her confusion doesn’t reflect negatively on her, though, because she has so much of the rest of her life in order. She’s an artist who’s not making much money, but enough to keep her satisfied, and she absolutely loves her work. She just can’t figure out what to make of Golden Ring. Ultimately, she meets Whinny, a fellow artist and fan of her work, at a gallery. Whinny quickly falls for her, and she realizes she loves him later.
This is harsh, but Whinny is easily the book’s greatest flaw. He has no personality whatsoever, merely existing to be a love interest who isn’t Golden Ring. Whinny may, in fact, be the primary reason the book has been lost. 
It’s nearly impossible to find reviews from the period, considering novels were often dismissed as a low artform, poems being preferable. However, there’s some indication that the book was fairly popular. Lord Regent, arguably the most famous poet of the era, called one of his characters “A Golden Ring without a Daisy” in a letter to a friend. A few authors indicate that “Whinny” was a short-lived regional slang for attractive, kind stallions, but that may have come shortly before the book’s release. The still-popular Rose Red’s Garden came out a few years after Flowers for Daisy, and is thought to have been written as a rebuttal that cast its Whinny equivalent, Steed, in a more active role.
About a hundred years ago, literary scholars began started demanding “strong protagonists.” For some reason, many critics interpreted Whinny as the protagonist, despite his relatively small part. This lead to many dismissing the story outright- most known texts that refer to Flowers for Daisy use it to compare negatively to other texts. Considering the book had been out of print for a while and continues to be, I’m guessing few, if any, of these critics actually read the thing. Regardless, I’m perhaps the only pony alive who’s both read and enjoyed Flowers for Daisy.
Flowers for Daisy’s author, Heartspring, also wrote a book of poetry simply titled Poems by Heartspring. It’s also pretty rare, so I’ve not had the chance to read it, but I know it’s available at the Canterlot Library.
With its obscurity and bad reputation among scholars, it’s unlikely that another copy of Flowers for Daisy will surface anytime soon. However, unlike a few of the other books destroyed with Golden Oak, other copies have at one time existed. (I know this for certain because the library's copy was marked as a second edition.) Perhaps it will come back someday. I certainly feel it deserves it.