Chamblee54

The fbf posted this quote: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats. I was looking for something, in the public domain, to use in a graphic poem. I googled the quote, and one of the results was @QuoteResearch, aka Quote Investigator®.
Eden Phillpotts crafted the sentence. It is on page 19 of A shadow passes, a book of prose celebrating nature. “In the marshes the buckbean has lifted its feathery mist of flower spikes above the bed of trefoil leaves. The fimbriated flowers are a miracle of workmanship and every blossom exhibits an exquisite disorder of ragged petals finer than lace. But one needs a lens to judge of their beauty: it lies hidden from the power of our eyes, and menyanthes must have bloomed and passed a million times before there came any to perceive and salute her loveliness. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
“God is in the details” is often attributed to minimalist German architect Mies van der Rohe, who probably co-opted the phrase from the German proverb ““Der liebe Gott steckt im detail”, which translates as “God is in the detail”. What this phrase neglects to mention is that many of these details are boring, even to an architect. That is certainly the case with Eden Phillpotts.
So the fbf was mistaken. My first impulse has been to play google gotcha, and immediately paste the contrarian evidence. This does get tiresome after a while. People like to find inspiration and entertainment where they can. The internet pedant can just find other ways to amuse himself.
Final confirmation comes from @BrainyQuote. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.