VIOLA. 189 



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 preciotiT* 

 stones, or of the sea and air, and the blue mountains, 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, * Cy therides. ' 



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

 them, of the pure blue of the sky ; but the Cy therides of al- 

 tered blue ; the first, Viola, typically purple ; the second, 

 Veronica, pale blue with a peculiar light ; the third, Giulietta, 

 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 its connec- 

 tion with the poisonous tribe of the foxgloves ; the Giulietta, 

 alone among flowers in the action of the shielding leaves ; and 

 the Viola, grotesque and inexplicable in its hidden structure, 

 but the most sacred of all flowers to earthly and daily Love, 

 both in its scent and glow. 



Now, therefore, let us look completely for the meaning of 

 the two leading lines, 



** Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath." 



45. Since, in my present writings, I hope to bring into one 

 focus the pieces of study fragmentarily given during past life, 

 I may refer my readers to the first chapter of the * Queen of 

 the Air ' for the explanation of the way in which all great 

 myths are founded, partly on physical, partly on moral fact, 

 so that it is not possible for persons who neither know the 

 aspect of nature, nor the constitution of the human soul, to 

 understand a word of them. Naming the Greek Gods, there- 

 fore, you have first to think of the physical power they repre- 



