134 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD. 
of them, not known to be natives of North America, 
have been much cultivated; the sweet violet (Vzola 
odorata, L.) on account of its fragrance, and the pansy 
or heartsease (V. tricolor, L.) on account of its beauti- 
ful flowers. The pansy is one of the finest of the florists’ 
flowers, and has been much improved by cultivation. 
The difference between some of its wild and some of its 
cultivated forms is so great that it is hard to realize that 
the latter have been evolved from the former. Its name 
is from the French pensée, suggestive of thoughtfulness, 
probably from the slightly drooping habit of the flower. 
It is to this that Shakspere alludes in Hamlet, when 
Ophelia says: 
“‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance ; pray you, 
love, remember ; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”’ 
“In Warwickshire and Worcestershire this plant is 
called by the common people Love in Jdleness,’ says 
Thornton, ‘“‘and therefore is doubtless the herb to which 
the inventive fancy of Shakspere attributes such extra- 
ordinary virtues in the person of Oberon, king of the 
fairies, in ‘The Midsummer Night’s Dream’”: 
“Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell : 
It fell upon a little western flower, 
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, 
And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 
