VERONICA.
1. "The Corolla of the Foxglove," says Dr. Lindley, beginning his account
of the tribe at page 195 of the first volume of his 'Ladies' Botany,' "is a
large inflated body(!), with its throat spotted with rich purple, and its
border divided obliquely into five very short lobes, of which the two upper
are the smaller; its four stamens are of unequal length, and its style is
divided into two lobes at the upper end. A number of long hairs cover the
ovary, which contains two cells and a great quantity of ovules.
"This" (_sc._ information) "will show you what is the usual character of
the Foxglove tribe; and you will find that all the other genera referred to
it in books agree with it essentially, although they differ in subordinate
points. It is chiefly (A) in the form of the corolla, (B) in the number of
the stamens, (C) in the consistence of the rind of the fruit, (D) in its
form, (E) in the number of the seeds it contains, and (F) in the manner in
which the sepals are combined, that these differences consist."
2. The enumerative letters are of my insertion--otherwise the above
sentence is, word for word, Dr. Lindley's,--and it seems to me an
interesting and memorable one in the history of modern Botanical science.
For it appears from the tenor of it, that in a scientific botanist's mind,
six particulars, at least, in the character of a plant, are merely
'subordinate points,'--namely,
1. (F) The combination of its calyx,
2. (A) The shape of its corolla,
3. (B) The number of its stamens,
4. (D) The form of its fruit,
5. (C) The consistence of its shell,--and
6. (E) The number of seeds in it.
Abstracting, then, from the primary description, all the six inessential
points, I find the three essential ones left are, that the style is divided
into two lobes at the upper end, that a number of glandular hairs cover the
ovary, and that this latter contains two cells.
3. None of which particulars concern any reasonable mortal, looking at a
Foxglove, in the smallest degree. Whether hairs which he can't see are
glandular or bristly,--whether the green knobs, which are left when the
purple bells are gone, are divided into two lobes or two hundred,--and
whether the style is split, like a snake's tongue, into two lobes, or like
a rogue's, into any number--are merely matters of vulgar curiosity, which
he needs a microscope to discover, and will lose a day of his life in
discovering. But if any pretty young Proserpina, escaped from the Plutonic
durance of London, and carried by the tubular process, which replaces
Charon's boat, over the Lune at Lancaster, cares to come and walk on the
Coniston hills in a summer morning, when the eyebright is out on the high
fields, she may gather, with a little help from Brantwood garden, a bouquet
of the entire Foxglove tribe in flower, as it is at present defined, and
may see what they are like, altogether.
4. She shall gather: first, the Euphrasy, which makes the turf on the brow
of the hill glitter as if with new-fallen manna; then, from one of the blue
clusters on the top of the garden wall, the common bright blue Speedwell;
and, from the garden bed beneath, a dark blue spire of Veronica spicata;
then, at the nearest opening into the wood, a little foxglove in its first
delight of shaking out its bells; then--what next does the Doctor say?--a
snapdragon? we must go back into the garden for that--here is a goodly
crimson one, but what the little speedwell will think of him for a relative
_I_ can't think!--a mullein?--that we must do without for the moment; a
monkey flower?--that we will do without, altogether; a lady's slipper?--say
rather a goblin's with the gout! but, such as the flower-cobbler has made
it, here is one of the kind that people praise, out of the greenhouse,--and
yet a figwort we must have, too; which I see on referring to Loudon, may be
balm-leaved, hemp-leaved, tansy-leaved, nettle-leaved, wing-leaved,
heart-leaved, ear-leaved, spear-leaved, or lyre-leaved. I think I can find
a balm-leaved one, though I don't know what to make of it when I've got it,
but it's called a 'Scorodonia' in Sowerby, and something very ugly
besides;--I'll put a bit of Teucrium Scorodonia in, to finish: and now--how
will my young Proserpina arrange her bouquet, and rank the family relations
to their contentment?
5. She has only one kind of flowers--in her hand, as botanical
classification stands at present; and whether the system be more rational,
or in any human sense more scientific, which puts calceolaria and speedwell
together,--and foxglove and euphrasy; and runs them on one side into the
mints, and on the other into the nightshades;--naming them, meanwhile, some
from diseases, some from vermin, some from blockheads, and the rest
anyhow:--or the method I am pleading for, which teaches us, watchful of
their seasonable return and chosen abiding places, to associate in our
memory the flowers which truly resemble, or fondly companion, or, in time
kept by the signs of Heaven, succeed, each other; and to name them in some
historical connection with the loveliest fancies and most helpful faiths of
the ancestral world--Proserpina be judge; with every maid that sets flowers
on brow or breast--from Thule to Sicily.
6. We will unbind our bouquet, then, and putting all the rest of its
flowers aside, examine the range and nature of the little blue cluster
only.
And first--we have to note of it, that the plan of the blossom in all the
kinds is the same; an irregular quatre-foil: and irregular quatrefoils are
of extreme rarity in flower form. I don't myself know _one_, except the
Veronica. The cruciform vegetables--the heaths, the olives, the lilacs, the
little Tormentillas, and the poppies, are all perfectly symmetrical. Two of
the petals, indeed, as a rule, are different from the other two, except in
the heaths; and thus a distinctly crosslet form obtained, but always an
equally balanced one: while in the Veronica, as in the Violet, the blossom
always refers itself to a supposed place on the stalk with respect to the
ground; and the upper petal is always the largest.
The supposed place is often very suppositious indeed--for clusters of the
common veronicas, if luxuriant, throw their blossoms about anywhere. But
the idea of an upper and lower petal is always kept in the flower's little
mind.
7. In the second place, it is a quite open and flat quatrefoil--so
separating itself from the belled quadrature of the heath, and the tubed
and primrose-like quadrature of the cruciferæ; and, both as a quatrefoil,
and as an open one, it is separated from the foxgloves and snapdragons,
which are neither quatrefoils, nor open; but are cinqfoils shut up!
8. In the third place, open and flat though the flower be, it is
monopetalous; all the four arms of the cross strictly becoming one in the
centre; so that, though the blue foils _look_ no less sharply separate than
those of a buttercup or a cistus; and are so delicate that one expects them
to fall from their stalk if we breathe too near,--do but lay hold of
one,--and, at the touch, the entire blossom is lifted from its stalk, and
may be laid, in perfect shape, on our paper before us, as easily as if it
had been a nicely made-up blue bonnet, lifted off its stand by the
milliner.
I pause here, to consider a little; because I find myself mixing up two
characteristics which have nothing necessary in their relation;--namely,
the unity of the blossom, and its coming easily off the stalk. The separate
petals of the cistus and cherry fall as easily as the foxglove drops its
bells;--on the other hand, there are monopetalous things that don't drop,
but hold on like the convoluta,[19] and make the rest of the tree sad for
their dying. I do not see my way to any systematic noting of decadent or
persistent corolla; but, in passing, we may thank the veronica for never
allowing us to see how it fades,[20] and being always cheerful and lovely,
while it is with us.
9. And for a farther specialty, I think we should take note of the purity
and simplicity of its _floral_ blue, not sprinkling itself with unwholesome
sugar like a larkspur, nor varying into coppery or turquoise-like hue as
the forget-me-not; but keeping itself as modest as a blue print, pale, in
the most frequent kinds; but pure exceedingly; and rejoicing in fellowship
with the grey of its native rocks. The palest of all I think it will be
well to remember as Veronica Clara, the "Poor Clare" of Veronicas. I find
this note on it in my diary,--
'The flower of an exquisite grey-white, like lichen, or shaded hoar-frost,
or dead silver; making the long-weathered stones it grew upon perfect with
a finished modesty of paleness, as if the flower _could_ be blue, and would
not, for their sake. Laying its fine small leaves along in embroidery, like
Anagallis tenella,--indescribable in the tender feebleness of
it--afterwards as it grew, dropping the little blossoms from the base of
the spire, before the buds at the top had blown. Gathered, it was happy
beside me, with a little water under a stone, and put out one pale blossom
after another, day by day.'
10. Lastly, and for a high worthiness, in my estimate, note that it is
_wild_, of the wildest, and proud in pure descent of race; submitting
itself to no follies of the cur-breeding florist. Its species, though many
resembling each other, are severally constant in aspect, and easily
recognizable; and I have never seen it provoked to glare into any gigantic
impudence at a flower show. Fortunately, perhaps, it is scentless, and so
despised.
11. Before I attempt arranging its families, we must note that while the
corolla itself is one of the most constant in form, and so distinct from
all other blossoms that it may be always known at a glance; the leaves and
habit of growth vary so greatly in families of different climates, and
those born for special situations, moist or dry, and the like, that it is
quite impossible to characterize Veronic, or Veronique, vegetation in
general terms. One can say, comfortably, of a strawberry, that it is a
creeper, without expecting at the next moment to see a steeple of
strawberry blossoms rise to contradict us;--we can venture to say of a
foxglove that it grows in a spire, without any danger of finding, farther
on, a carpet of prostrate and entangling digitalis; and we may pronounce of
a buttercup that it grows mostly in meadows, without fear of finding
ourselves, at the edge of the next thicket, under the shadow of a
buttercup-bush growing into valuable timber. But the Veronica reclines with
the lowly,[21] upon occasion, and aspires, with the proud; is here the
pleased companion of the ground-ivies, and there the unrebuked rival of the
larkspurs: on the rocks of Coniston it effaces itself almost into the film
of a lichen; it pierces the snows of Iceland with the gentian: and in the
Falkland Islands is a white-blossomed evergreen, of which botanists are in
dispute whether it be Veronica or Olive.
12. Of these many and various forms, I find the manners and customs alike
inconstant; and this of especially singular in them--that the Alpine and
northern species bloom hardily in contest with the retiring snows, while
with us they wait till the spring is past, and offer themselves to us only
in consolation for the vanished violet and primrose. As we farther examine
the ways of plants, I suppose we shall find some that determine upon a
fixed season, and will bloom methodically in June or July, whether in
Abyssinia or Greenland; and others, like the violet and crocus, which are
flowers of the spring, at whatever time of the favouring or frowning year
the spring returns to their country. I suppose also that botanists and
gardeners know all these matters thoroughly: but they don't put them into
their books, and the clear notions of them only come to me now, as I think
and watch.
13. Broadly, however, the families of the Veronica fall into three main
divisions,--those which have round leaves lobed at the edge, like ground
ivy; those which have small thyme-like leaves; and those which have long
leaves like a foxglove's, only smaller--never more than two or two and a
half inches long. I therefore take them in these connections, though
without any bar between the groups; only separating the Regina from the
other thyme-leaved ones, to give her due precedence; and the rest will then
arrange themselves into twenty families, easily distinguishable and
memorable.
[Illustration: FIG. IV.]
I have chosen for Veronica Regina, the brave Icelandic one, which pierces
the snow in first spring, with lovely small shoots of perfectly set leaves,
no larger than a grain of wheat; the flowers in a lifted cluster of five or
six together, not crowded, yet not loose; large, for veronica--about the
size of a silver penny, or say half an inch across--deep blue, with ruby
centre.
My woodcut, Fig. 4, is outlined[22] from the beautiful engraving D.
342,[23]--there called 'fruticulosa,' from the number of the young shoots.
14. Beneath the Regina, come the twenty easily distinguished families,
namely:--
1. Chamædrys. 'Ground-oak.' I cannot tell why so called--its small and
rounded leaves having nothing like oak leaves about them, except the
serration, which is common to half, at least, of all leaves that grow. But
the idea is all over Europe, apparently. Fr. 'petit chêne:' German and
English 'Germander,' a merely corrupt form of Chamædrys.
The representative English veronica "Germander Speedwell"--very prettily
drawn in S. 986; too tall and weed-like in D. 448.
2. Hederifolia. Ivy-leaved: but more properly, cymbalaria-leaved. It is the
English field representative, though blue-flowered, of the Byzantine white
veronica, V. Cymbalaria, very beautifully drawn in G. 9. Hederifolia well
in D. 428.
3. Agrestis. Fr. 'Rustique.' We ought however clearly to understand whether
'agrestis,' used by English botanists, is meant to imply a literally field
flower, or only a 'rustic' one, which might as properly grow in a wood. I
shall always myself use 'agrestis' in the literal sense, and 'rustica' for
'rustique.' I see no reason, in the present case, for separating the Polite
from the Rustic flower: the agrestis, D. 449 and S. 971, seems to me not
more meekly recumbent, nor more frankly cultureless, than the so-called
Polita, S. 972: there seems also no French acknowledgment of its
politeness, and the Greek family, G. 8, seem the rudest and wildest of all.
Quite a _field_ flower it is, I believe, lying always low on the ground;
recumbent, but not creeping. Note this difference: no fastening roots are
thrown out by the reposing stems of this Veronica; a creeping or accurately
'rampant' plant roots itself in advancing. Conf. Nos. 5, 6.
4. Arvensis. We have yet to note a still finer distinction in epithet.
'Agrestis' will properly mean a flower of the open ground--yet not caring
whether the piece of earth be cultivated or not, so long as it is under
clear sky. But when _agri_-culture has turned the unfruitful acres into
'arva beata,'--if then the plant thrust itself between the furrows of the
plough, it is properly called 'Arvensis.'
I don't quite see my way to the same distinction in English,--perhaps I may
get into the habit, as time goes on, of calling the Arvenses consistently
furrow-flowers, and the Agrestes field-flowers. Furrow-veronica is a
tiresomely long name, but must do for the present, as the best
interpretation of its Latin character, "vulgatissima in cultis et arvis."
D. 515. The blossom itself is exquisitely delicate; and we may be thankful,
both here and in Denmark, for such a lovely 'vulgate.'
5. Montana. D. 1201. The first really creeping plant we have had to notice.
It throws out roots from the recumbent stems. Otherwise like agrestis, it
has leaves like ground-ivy. Called a wood species in the text of D.
6. Persica. An eastern form, but now perfectly naturalized here--D. 1982;
S. 973. The flowers very large, and extremely beautiful, but only one
springing from each leaf-axil.
Leaves and stem like Montana; and also creeping with new-roots at
intervals.
7. Triphylla, (not triphyll_os_,--see Flora Suecica, 22). Meaning
trifid-leaved; but the leaf is really divided into five lobes, not
three--see S. 974, and G. 10. The palmate form of the leaf seems a mere
caprice, and indicates no transitional form in the plant: it may be
accepted as only a momentary compliment of mimicry to the geraniums. The
Siberian variety, 'multifida,' C. 1679, divides itself almost as the
submerged leaves of the water-ranunculus.
The triphylla itself is widely diffused, growing alike on the sandy fields
of Kent, and of Troy. In D. 627 is given an extremely delicate and minute
northern type, the flowers springing as in Persica, one from each
leaf-axil, and at distant intervals.
8. Officinalis. D. 248, S. 294. Fr. 'Veronique officinale'; (Germ.
Gebrauchlicher Ehrenpreis,) our commonest English and Welsh speedwell;
richest in cluster and frankest in roadside growth, whether on bank or
rock; but assuredly liking _either_ a bank _or_ a rock, and the top of a
wall better than the shelter of one. Uncountable 'myriads,' I am tempted to
write, but, cautiously and literally, 'hundreds' of blossoms--if one
_could_ count,--ranging certainly towards the thousand in some groups, all
bright at once, make our Westmoreland lanes look as if they were decked for
weddings, in early summer. In the Danish Flora it is drawn small and poor;
its southern type being the true one: but it is difficult to explain the
difference between the look of a flower which really _suffers_, as in this
instance, by a colder climate, and becomes mean and weak, as well as
dwarfed; and one which is braced and brightened by the cold, though
diminished, as if under the charge and charm of an affectionate fairy, and
becomes a joyfully patriotic inheritor of wilder scenes and skies.
Medicinal, to soul and body alike, this gracious and domestic flower;
though astringent and bitter in the juice. It is the Welsh deeply honoured
'Fluellen.'--See final note on the myth of Veronica, see § 18.
9. Thymifolia. Thyme-leaved, G. 6. Of course the longest possible
word--serpyllifolia--is used in S. 978. It is a high mountain plant,
growing on the top of Crete as the snow retires; and the Veronica minor of
Gerarde; "the roote is small and threddie, taking hold of the _upper
surface_ of the earth, where it spreadeth." So also it is drawn as a
creeper in F. 492, where the flower appears to be oppressed and concealed
by the leafage.
10. Minuta, called 'hirsuta' in S. 985: an ugly characteristic to name the
lovely little thing by. The distinct blue lines in the petals might perhaps
justify 'picta' or 'lineata,' rather than an epithet of size; but I suppose
it is Gerarde's Minima, and so leave it, more safely named as 'minute' than
'least.' For I think the next variety may dispute the leastness.
[Illustration: FIG. V.]
11. Verna. D. 252. Mountains, in dry places in early spring. Upright, and
confused in the leafage, which is sharp-pointed and close set, much hiding
the blossom, but of extreme elegance, fit for a sacred foreground; as any
gentle student will feel, who copies this outline from the Flora Danica,
Fig. 5.
12. Peregrina. Another extremely small variety, nearly pink in colour,
passing into bluish lilac and white. American; but called, I do not see
why, 'Veronique _voyageuse_,' by the French, and Fremder Ehrenpreis in
Germany. Given as a frequent English weed in S. 927.
13. Alpina. Veronique des Alpes. Gebirgs Ehrenpreis. Still minute; its
scarcely distinct flowers forming a close head among the leaves;
round-petalled in D. 16, but sharp, as usual, in S. 980. On the Norway Alps
in grassy places; and in Scotland by the side of mountain rills; but rare.
On Ben Nevis and Lachin y Gair (S.)
14. Scutellata. From the shield-like shape of its seed-vessels. Veronique à
Ecusson; Schildfruchtiger Ehrenpreis. But the seed-vessels are more heart
shape than shield. Marsh Speedwell. S. 988, D. 209,--in the one pink, in
the other blue; but again in D. 1561, pink.
"In flooded meadows, common." (D.) A spoiled and scattered form; the seeds
too conspicuous, but the flowers very delicate, hence 'Gratiola minima' in
Gesner. The confused ramification of the clusters worth noting, in relation
to the equally straggling fibres of root.
15. Spicata. S. 982: very prettily done, representing the inside of the
flower as deep blue, the outside pale. The top of the spire, all calices,
the calyx being indeed, through all the veronicas, an important and
persistent member.
The tendency to arrange itself in spikes is to be noted as a degradation of
the veronic character; connecting it on one side with the snapdragons, on
the other with the ophryds. In Veronica Ophrydea, (C. 2210,) this
resemblance to the contorted tribe is carried so far that "the corolla of
the veronica becomes irregular, the tube gibbous, the faux (throat) hairy,
and three of the laciniæ (lobes of petals) variously twisted." The spire of
blossom, violet-coloured, is then close set, and exactly resembles an
ophryd, except in being sharper at the top. The engraved outline of the
blossom is good, and very curious.
16. Gentianoides. This is the most directly and curiously imitative among
the--shall we call them--'histrionic' types of Veronica. It grows exactly
like a clustered upright gentian; has the same kind of leaves at its root,
and springs with the same bright vitality among the retiring snows of the
Bithynian Olympus. (G. 5.) If, however, the Caucasian flower, C. 1002, be
the same, it has lost its perfect grace in luxuriance, growing as large as
an asphodel, and with root-leaves half a foot long.
The petals are much veined; and this, of all veronicas, has the lower petal
smallest in proportion to the three above,--"triplò aut quadruplò minori."
(G.)
17. Stagnarum. Marsh-Veronica. The last four families we have been
examining vary from the typical Veronicas not only in their lance-shaped
clusters, but in their lengthened, and often every way much enlarged leaves
also: and the two which we now will take in association, 17 and 18, carry
the change in aspect farthest of any, being both of them true water-plants,
with strong stems and thick leaves. The present name of my Veronica
Stagnarum is however V. anagallis, a mere insult to the little water
primula, which one plant of the Veronica would make fifty of. This is a
rank water-weed, having confused bunches of blossom and seed, like unripe
currants, dangling from the leaf-axils. So that where the little triphylla,
(No. 7, above,) has only one blossom, daintily set, and well seen, this has
a litter of twenty-five or thirty on a long stalk, of which only three or
four are well out as flowers, and the rest are mere knobs of bud or seed.
The stalk is thick (half an inch round at the bottom), the leaves long and
misshapen. "Frequens in fossis," D. 203. French, Mouron d'Eau, but I don't
know the root or exact meaning of Mouron.
An ugly Australian species, 'labiata,' C. 1660, has leaves two inches long,
of the shape of an aloe's, and partly aloeine in texture, "sawed with
unequal, fleshy, pointed teeth."
18. Fontium. Brook-Veronica. Brook-_Lime_, the Anglo-Saxon 'lime' from
Latin limus, meaning the soft mud of streams. German 'Bach-bunge'
(Brook-purse?) ridiculously changed by the botanists into 'Beccabunga,' for
a Latin name! Very beautiful in its crowded green leaves as a
stream-companion; rich and bright more than watercress. See notice of it at
Matlock, in 'Modern Painters,' vol. v.
19. Clara. Veronique des rochers. Saxatilis, I suppose, in Sowerby, but am
not sure of having identified that with my own favourite, for which I
therefore keep the name 'Clara,' (see above, § 9); and the other rock
variety, if indeed another, mast be remembered, together with it.
20. Glauca. G. 7. And this, at all events, with the Clara, is to be
remembered as closing the series of twenty families, acknowledged by
Proserpina. It is a beautiful low-growing ivy-leaved type, with flowers of
subdued lilac blue. On Mount Hymettus: no other locality given in the Flora
Græca.
15. I am sorry, and shall always be so, when the varieties of any flower
which I have to commend to the student's memory, exceed ten or twelve in
number; but I am content to gratify his pride with lengthier task, if
indeed he will resign himself to the imperative close of the more inclusive
catalogue, and be content to know the twelve, or sixteen, or twenty,
acknowledged families, thoroughly; and only in their illustration to think
of rarer forms. The object of 'Proserpina' is to make him happily cognizant
of the common aspect of Greek and English flowers; under the term
'English,' comprehending the Saxon, Celtic, Norman, and Danish Floras. Of
the evergreen shrub alluded to in § 11 above, the Veronica Decussata of the
Pacific, which is "a bushy evergreen, with beautifully set cross-leaves,
and white blossoms scented like olea fragrans," I should like him only to
read with much surprise, and some incredulity, in Pinkerton's or other
entertaining travellers' voyages.
16. And of the families given, he is to note for the common simple
characteristic, that they are quatrefoils referred to a more or less
elevated position on a central stem, and having, in that relation, the
lowermost petal diminished, contrary to the almost universal habit of other
flowers to develope in such a position the lower petal chiefly, that it may
have its full share of light. You will find nothing but blunder and
embarrassment result from any endeavour to enter into further particulars,
such as "the relation of the dissepiment with respect to the valves of the
capsule," etc., etc., since "in the various species of Veronica almost
every kind of dehiscence may be observed" (C. under V. perfoliata, 1936, an
Australian species). Sibthorpe gives the entire definition of Veronica with
only one epithet added to mine, "Corolla quadrifida, _rotata_, laciniâ
infimâ angustiore," but I do not know what 'rotata' here means, as there is
no appearance of revolved action in the petals, so far as I can see.
17. Of the mythic or poetic significance of the veronica, there is less to
be said than of its natural beauty. I have not been able to discover with
what feeling, or at what time, its sacred name was originally given; and
the legend of S. Veronica herself is, in the substance of it, irrational,
and therefore incredible. The meaning of the term 'rational,' as applied to
a legend or miracle, is, that there has been an intelligible need for the
permission of the miracle at the time when it is recorded; and that the
nature and manner of the act itself should be comprehensible in the scope.
There was thus quite simple need for Christ to feed the multitudes, and to
appear to S. Paul; but no need, so far as human intelligence can reach, for
the reflection of His features upon a piece of linen which could be seen by
not one in a million of the disciples to whom He might more easily, at any
time, manifest Himself personally and perfectly. Nor, I believe, has the
story of S. Veronica ever been asserted to be other than symbolic by the
sincere teachers of the Church; and, even so far as in that merely
explanatory function, it became the seal of an extreme sorrow, it is not
easy to understand how the pensive fable was associated with a flower so
familiar, so bright, and so popularly of good omen, as the Speedwell.
18. Yet, the fact being actually so, and this consecration of the veronica
being certainly far more ancient and earnest than the faintly romantic and
extremely absurd legend of the forget-me-not; the speedwell has assuredly
the higher claim to be given and accepted as a token of pure and faithful
love, and to be trusted as a sweet sign that the innocence of affection is
indeed more frequent, and the appointed destiny of its faith more
fortunate, than our inattentive hearts have hitherto discerned.
19. And this the more, because the recognized virtues and uses of the plant
are real and manifold; and the ideas of a peculiar honourableness and worth
of life connected with it by the German popular name 'Honour-prize'; while
to the heart of the British race, the same thought is brought home by
Shakespeare's adoption of the flower's Welsh name, for the faithfullest
common soldier of his ideal king. As a lover's pledge, therefore, it does
not merely mean memory;--for, indeed, why should love be thought of as such
at all, if it need to promise not to forget?--but the blossom is
significant also of the lover's best virtues, patience in suffering, purity
in thought, gaiety in courage, and serenity in truth: and therefore I make
it, worthily, the clasping and central flower of the Cytherides.
* * * * *