82 PROSERPINA. 



tion of the veronica being certainly far more ancient and 

 earnest than the faintly romantic and extremely absurd 

 legend of the forget-me-not; the speedwell has assuredly 

 the higher claim to be given and accepted as a token of 

 pure and faithful love, and to be trusted as a sweet sign 

 that the innocence of affection is indeed more frequent, 

 and the appointed destiny of its faith more fortunate, 

 than our inattentive hearts have hitherto discerned. 



19. And this the more, because the recognized virtues 

 and uses of the plant are real and manifold ; and the 

 ideas of a peculiar honourableness and worth of life con- 

 nected with it by the German popular name ' Honour- 

 prize ' ; while to the heart of the British race, the same 

 thought is brought home by Shakespeare's adoption of 

 the flower's Welsh name, for the faithfullest common 

 soldier of his ideal king. As a lover's pledge, therefore, 

 it does not merely mean memory ; for, indeed, why 

 should love be thought of as such at all, if it need to 

 promise riot to forget ? but the blossom is significant 

 also of the lover's best virtues, patience in suffering, 

 purity in thought, gaiety in courage, and serenity in 

 truth : and therefore I make it, worthily, the clasping 

 and central flower of the Cytherides. 



