VERONICA. 219 



corded ; and that the nature and manner of the act itself 

 should be comprehensible in the scope. There was thus 

 quite simple need for Christ to feed the multitudes, and to 

 appear to S. Paul ; but no need, so far as human intelligence 

 can reach, for the reflection of His features upon a piece of 

 linen which could be seen by not one in a million of the dis- 

 ciples to whom He might more easily, at any time, manifest 

 Himself personally and perfectly. Nor, I believe, has the 

 story of S. Veronica ever been asserted to be other than sym- 

 bolic by the sincere teachers of the Church ; and, even so far 

 as in that merely explanatory function, it became the seal of 

 an extreme sorrow, it is not easy to understand how the pen- 

 sive fable was associated with a flower so familiar, so bright, 

 and so popularly of good omen, as the Speedwell. 



18. Yet, the fact being actually so, and this consecration 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 dis- 

 cerned. 



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 connected 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 comm^r soldier of his ideal king. As a lover's 

 pledge, therefore, it does not merely mean memory ; for, in- 

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

 to promise not 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 there- 

 fore I make it, worthily, the clasping and central flower of 

 the Cytherides. 



