Heart*s-ease. 
(THINK OF ME —THO U GH TS.) 
“ There are pansies: that’s for thoughts.” 
Shakspeare. 
T HE Heart' s-ease, as its French name of pansy or pensee 
intimates, is in the language of flowers symbolical of 
remembrance. It is a beautiful variety of the violet, far sur¬ 
passing that flower in diversity and brilliance of colour, bur 
possessing little, if any, of the exquisite fragrance for which that 
is so renowned. Although it certainly has so little in the way 
of perfume to recommend it, its lovely diversification and con¬ 
trasts of colour, combined with the glossy velvet sheen of its 
petals, renders it a much-admired floral pet. It appertains to 
a very extensive family, and is found in many portions of the 
globe; it grows wild in Japan, Languedoc, Italy, and in our 
own country, where it is supposed to be indigenous. A very 
pretty pale yellow variety may often be discovered nestling 
amid the corn. 
“ There are pansies: that’s for thoughts.” 
says Shakspeare, and availing himself of the usual licence of 
poets, the great bard describes the pansy as originally milk- 
white, until it got struck by a shaft which that little unbreeched 
rogue Cupid had aimed at Diana, so that it is now “purple 
with love’s wound.” 
Mrs. Siddons is said to have been much enamoured of this 
blossom, and to have used it for edgings to all the borders of 
her flower-beds. The purchases of these “ bright mosaics ” 
were so frequent, that her servant who obtained them for her 
was known to the surrounding nurserymen by the soubriquet oi 
“ Heart’s-ease.” 
An amusing story is related in connection with this flower. 
In 1815, a cure of a small French town gave his pupils as a 
