rOETKY OF FLOWERS. 219 
VIOLET, WHITE. 
MODESTY. 
The violet is for modesty 
Burns. 
Violets, considered by some, including Sco¬ 
tia’s shepherd bard, typical of modesty , by others 
are deemed emblematic of faithfulness. 
The rank which this timid little blossom holds 
in floral caligraphy is a very exalted one; in¬ 
deed, the rose excepted, there is not a flower 
that “tolls its perfume on the passing air,” 
which is so generally admired and belauded. 
From Homer down to Tennyson, not a famous 
poet but has linked its sweetness with his own, 
and many are the lovely ideas its beauty and 
fragrance have suggested. 
The Greeks, who peopled the petals of every 
blossom and the ripples of every rill with the 
graceful offspring of their fancy, designated 
this floweret Ion, which name some enterprising 
etymologists believe to be a derivation of la, the 
daughter of Midas and the betrothed of Atys, 
whom, they say, to conceal her from Apollo, 
Diana transformed into a violet. Other mytho¬ 
logical accounts state that Jupiter caused the 
first sweet violets to spring from the earth as 
food for persecuted Io, whilst she was hiding, 
