I. VIOLA. 15 



altogether look a good deal like a quite uneatable old 

 watercress) ; not salviau, for there's no look of warmth 

 or comfort in them ; not cauline, for there's no juice in 

 them ; not dryad, for there's no strength in them, nor 

 apparent use : they seem only there, as far as I can make 

 out, to spoil the flower, and take the good out of my 

 garden bed. Nobody in the world could draw them, 

 they are so mixed up together, and crumpled and hacked 

 about, as if some ill-natured child had snipped them with 

 blunt scissors, and an ill-natured cow chewed them a 

 little afterwards and left them, proved for too tough or 

 too bitter. 



21. Having now sufficiently observed, it seems to me, 

 this incongruous plant, I proceed to ask myself, over it, 

 M. Figuier's question, 4 Qu'est-ce c'est qu'un Pensee?' 

 Is this a violet or a pansy or a bad imitation of both ? 



Whereupon I try if it has any scent : and to my much 

 surprise, find it has a full and soft one which I suppose 

 is what my gardener keeps it for! According to Dr. 

 Lindley, then, it must be a violet! But according to M. 

 Figuier, let me see, do its middle petals bend up, or 

 down? 



I think I'll go and ask the gardener what he calls it. 



22. My gardener, on appeal to him, tells me it is the 

 6 Yiola Cornuta.' but that he does not know himself if it 

 is violet or pansy. I take my London again, and find 

 there were fifty-three species of violets, known in his 

 days, of which, as it chances, Cornuta is exactly the last. 



