The PANSY (_viola tricolor_) commonly called _Hearts-ease_, or
_Love-in-idleness_, or _Herb-Trinity_ (_Flos Trinitarium_), or
_Three-faces-under-a-hood_, or _Kit-run-about_, is one of the richest
and loveliest of flowers.
The late Mrs. Siddons, the great actress, was so fond of this flower
that she thought she could never have enough of it. Besides round beds
of it she used it as an edging to all the flower borders in her garden.
She liked to plant a favorite flower in large masses of beauty. But such
beauty must soon fatigue the eye with its sameness. A round bed of one
sort of flowers only is like a nosegay composed of one sort of flowers
or of flowers of the same hue. She was also particularly fond of
evergreens because they gave her garden a pleasant aspect even in the
winter.
"Do you hear him?"--(John Bunyan makes the guide enquire of Christiana
while a shepherd boy is singing beside his sheep)--"I will dare to say
this boy leads a merrier life, and wears more of the herb called
_hearts-ease_ in his bosom, than he that is clothed in silk and purple."
Shakespeare has connected this flower with a compliment to the maiden
Queen of England.
That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed, a certain aim he took
At a fair Vestal, throned by the west;
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon--
And the imperial votaress passed on
In maiden meditation fancy free,
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon _a little western flowers,
Before milk white, now purple with love's wound--
And maidens call it_ LOVE IN IDLENESS
Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once,
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb and be thou here again,
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
_Midsummer Night's Dream._
The hearts-ease has been cultivated with great care and success by some
of the most zealous flower-fanciers amongst our countrymen in India. But
it is a delicate plant in this clime, and requires most assiduous
attention, and a close study of its habits. It always withers here under
ordinary hands.