I. VIOLA. 13 



pulling up a handful of pansies by the roots, I find them 

 "without stems," indeed, if a stem means a wooden 

 thing ; but I should say, for a low-growing flower, quiet 

 lankily and disagreeably stalky ! And, thinking over 

 what I remember about wild pansies, I find an impres- 

 sion on my mind of their being rather more stalky, al- 

 ways, than is quite graceful ; and, for all their fine flow- 

 ers, having rather a weedy and littery look, and getting 

 into places where they have no business. See, again, 

 vol. i., chap, vi., 5. 



18. And now, going up into my flower and fruit gar- 

 den, I find (June 2nd, 1881, half-past six, morning,) 

 among the wild saxifrages, which are allowed to grow 

 wherever they like, and the rock strawberries, and Fran- 

 cescas, which are coaxed to grow wherever there is a bit 

 of rough ground for them, a bunch or two of pale pan- 

 sies, or violets, I don't know well which, by the flower ; 

 but the entire company of them has a ragged, jagged, 

 un purpose-like look ; extremely, I should say, demor- 

 alizing to all the little plants in their neighbourhood : and 

 on gathering a flower, I find it is a nasty big thing, all 

 of a feeble blue, and with two things like horns, or 

 thorns, sticking out where its ears would be, if the 

 pansy's frequently monkey face were underneath them. 

 Which I find to be two of the leaves of its calyx 'out of 

 place,' and, at all events, for their part, therefore, weedy, 

 and insolent. 



19. I perceive, farther, that this disorderly flower is 



