166 PROSERPINA. 



beauty of the wood sorrels ; nor am I less inclined, looking to 

 her as the greatest of sculptors and painters, to ask, every time 

 I see a narcissus, why it should be wrapped up in brown 

 paper ; and every time I see a violet, what it wants with a 

 spur? 



3. What any flower wants with a spur, is indeed the sim- 

 plest and hitherto to me unanswerable st form of the question : 

 nevertheless, when blossoms grow in spires, and are crowded 

 together, and have to grow partly downwards, in order to win 

 their share of light and breeze, one can see some reason for the 

 effort of the petals to expand upwards and backwards also. 

 But that a violet, who has her little stalk to herself, and might 

 grow straight up, if she pleased, should be pleased to do noth- 

 ing of the sort, but quite gratuitously bend her stalk down at 

 the top, and fasten herself to it by her waist, as it were, this 

 is so much more like a girl of the period's fancy than a violet's, 

 that I never gather one separately but with renewed astonish- 

 ment at it. 



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

 until this moment ! a piece of stupidity which I can only par- 

 don 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 be- 

 ing always led 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 (or 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 Elyria, and grow everywhere else also, when they can, - 

 on a bank, facing the south. 



Just as distinctly as the daisy and buttercup are meadow 

 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 

 gtem that it shows, when growing on a slope, the full space 



