126 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



For the beauty of its form, for the depth and 

 richness of its color, for the graceful drooping of 

 its stalk and the nodding of its head, for its lovely 

 heart-shaped leaf and above all for its delicious per- 

 fume, the violet is admired. Then when we gaze 

 into its tiny face and note the delicacy of its veins, 

 which Shakespeare so often mentions, we gain a 

 sense of its deeper beauty and significance. 



Dr. Forbes Watson observed : 



"I give one instance of Nature's care for the look 

 of the stamens and pistils of a flower. In the blos- 

 som of the Scented Violet the stamens form, by their 

 convergence, a little orange beak. At the end of 

 this beak is the summit of the pistil, a tiny speck 

 of green, but barely visible to the naked eye. Yet 

 small as it is, it completes the color of the flower, 

 by softening the orange, and we can distinctly see 

 that if this mere point were removed, there would 

 be imperfection for the want of it." 



St. Francis de Sales, a contemporary of Shake- 

 speare, gave a lovely description of the flower when 

 he said: 



"A true widow is in the Church as a March Violet, 

 shedding around an exquisite perfume by the frag- 

 rance of her devotion and always hidden under the 

 ample leaves of her lowliness and by her subdued 



