I. VIOLA. 3 



4. One reason indeed there is, which I never thought 

 of until this moment ! a piece of stupidity which I can 

 only pardon myself in, because, as it has chanced, I have 

 studied violets most in gardens, not in their wild haunts, 

 partly thinking their Athenian honour was as a garden 

 flower; and partly being always Ted away from them, 

 among the hills, by flowers which I could see nowhere 

 else. With all excuse I can furbish up, however, it is 

 shameful that the truth of the matter never struck me 

 before, or at least this bit of the truth as follows. 



5. The Greeks, and Milton, alike speak of violets as 

 growing in meadows tor dales). But the Greeks did so 

 because they could not fancy any delight except in 

 meadows; and Milton, because he wanted a rhyme to 

 nightingale and, after all, was London bred. But 

 Viola's beloved knew where violets grew in Illyria, and 

 grow everywhere else also, when they can, on a bank, 

 facing the south. 



Just as distinctly as the daisy and buttercup are 

 'no flowers, the violet is a bank flower, and would 

 fain grow always on a steep slope, towards the sun. 

 And it is so poised on its stem that it shows, when grow- 

 ing on a slope, the full space and opening of its flower, 

 not at all, in any strain of modesty, hiding ifa-tf* 

 though it may easily be, by grass or mossy stone, 'half 

 hidden,' but, to the full, showing itself, and intending 

 to be lovely and luminous, as fragrant, to the uttermost 

 of its soft power. 



