VIOLA. 173 



tmbotanical human creature ! I must set about my business, 

 at any rate, in my own way, now, as I best can, looking first 

 at things themselves, and then putting this and that together, 

 out of these botanical persons, which they can't put together 

 out of themselves. And first, I go down into my kitchen 

 garden, where the path to the lake has a border of pansies on 

 both sides all the way down, with clusters of narcissus behind 

 them. And pulling up a handful of pansies by the roots, I 

 find them " without stems," indeed, if a stem means a wooden 

 thing ; but I should say, for a low-growing flower, quite 

 lankily and disagreeably stalky ! And, thinking over what I 

 semember about wild pausies, I find an impression on my 

 mind of their being rather more stalky, always, than is quite 

 graceful ; and, for all their fine flowers, having rather a weedy 

 and littery look, and getting into places where they have no 

 business. See, again, vol. i., chap, vi., 5. 



18. And now, going up into my flower and fruit garden, I 

 find (June 2nd, 1881, half-past six, morning,) among the wild 

 saxifrages, which are allowed to grow wherever they like, and 

 the rock strawberries, and Francescas, which are coaxed to 

 grow wherever there is a bit of rough ground for them, a 

 bunch or two of pale pansies, or violets, I don't know well 

 which, by the flower ; but the entire company of them has a 

 ragged, jagged, unpurpose-like look ; extremely, I should 

 say, demoralizing to all the little plants in their neighbour- 

 hood : and on gathering a flower, I find it is a nasty big thing, 

 all of a feeble blue, and with two things like horns, or thorns, 

 sticking out where its ears would be, if the pansy's frequently 

 monkey face were underneath them. Which I find to be two 

 of the leaves of its calyx 'out of place/ and, at all events, for 

 their part, therefore, weedy, and insolent. 



19. I perceive, farther, that this disorderly flower is lifted 

 on a lanky, awkward, springless, and yet stiff flower-stalk ; 

 which is not round, as a flower-stalk ought to be, (vol. i., p. 

 235,) but obstinately square, and fluted, with projecting 

 edges, like a pillar run thin out of an iron-foundry for a cheap 

 railway station. I perceive also that it has set on it, just be- 

 fore turning down to carry the flower, two little jaggy and in- 



