36 PROSERPINA. 



of the Doctor in the ' Malade Imaginaire ' " y mettre Je 

 nez." I observe a paper in the last c Contemporary Re 

 view,' announcing for a discovery patent to all mankind 

 that the colours of flowers were made " to attract in- 

 sects" ! * They will next hear that the rose was made 

 for the canker, and the body of man for the worm. 



43. What the colours of flowers, or of birds, or of 

 precious stones, or of the sea and air, and the blue moun- 

 tains, and the evening and the morning, and the clouds 

 of Heaven, were given for they only know who can 

 see them and can feel, and who pray that the sight and 

 the love of them may be prolonged, where cheeks will 

 not fade, nor sunsets die. 



44. And now, to close, let me give you some fuller 

 account of the reasons for the naming of the order to 

 which the violet belongs, ' Cytherides.' 



You see that the Uranides, are, as far as I could so 

 gather them, of the pure blue of the sky ; but the Cyther- 

 ides of altered blue ; the first, Viola, typically purple ; 

 the second, Veronica, pale blue with a peculiar light ; 

 the third, Ginlietta, deep blue, passing strangely into a 

 subdued green before and after the full life of the 

 flower. 



All these three flowers have great strangenesses in 

 them, and weaknesses ; the Veronica most wonderful in 



* Did the wretch never hear bees in a lime tree then, or ever see 

 one on a star gentian ? 



