"the pansy, freaked with jet,
The glowing violet."
Shakspeare shows yet stronger sense of the difference, in the "purple with Love's wound" of the pansy, while the violet is sweet with Love's hidden life, and sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.
Whereupon, we may perhaps consider with ourselves a little, what the difference is between a violet and a pansy?
13. Is, I say, and was, and is to come,—in spite of florists, who try to make pansies round, instead of pentagonal; and of the wise classifying people, who say that violets and pansies are the same thing—and that neither of them are of much interest! As, for instance, Dr. Lindley in his 'Ladies' Botany.'
"Violets—sweet Violets, and Pansies, or Heartsease, represent a small family, with the structure of which you should be familiar; more, however, for the sake of
its singularity than for its extent or importance, for the family is a very small one, and there are but few species belonging to it in which much interest is taken. As the parts of the Heartsease are larger than those of the Violet, let us select the former in preference for the subject of our study." Whereupon we plunge instantly into the usual account of things with horns and tails. "The stamens are five in number—two of them, which are in front of the others, are hidden within the horn of the front petal," etc., etc., etc. (Note in passing, by the 'horn of the front' petal he means the 'spur of the bottom' one, which indeed does stand in front of the rest,—but if therefore it is to be called the front petal—which is the back one?) You may find in the next paragraph description of a "singular conformation," and the interesting conclusion that "no one has yet discovered for what purpose this singular conformation was provided." But you will not, in the entire article, find the least attempt to tell you the difference between a violet and a pansy!—except in one statement—and that false! "The sweet violet will have no rival among flowers, if we merely seek for delicate fragrance; but her sister, the heartsease, who is destitute of all sweetness, far surpasses her in rich dresses and gaudy!!! colours." The heartsease is not without sweetness. There are sweet pansies scented, and dog pansies unscented—as there are sweet violets scented, and dog violets unscented. What is the real difference?
14. I turn to another scientific gentleman—more scientific in form indeed, Mr. Grindon,—and find, for another interesting phenomenon in the violet, that it sometimes produces flowers without any petals! and in the pansy, that "the flowers turn towards the sun, and when many are open at once, present a droll appearance, looking like a number of faces all on the 'qui vive.'" But nothing of the difference between them, except something about 'stipules,' of which "it is important to observe that the leaves should be taken from the middle of the stem—those above and below being variable."
I observe, however, that Mr. Grindon has arranged his violets under the letter A, and his pansies under the letter B, and that something may be really made out of him, with an hour or two's work. I am content, however, at present, with his simplifying assurance that of violet and pansy together, "six species grow wild in Britain—or, as some believe, only four—while the analysts run the number up to fifteen."
15. Next I try Loudon's Cyclopædia, which, through all its 700 pages, is equally silent on the business; and next, Mr. Baxter's 'British Flowering Plants,' in the index of which I find neither Pansy nor Heartsease, and only the 'Calathian' Violet, (where on earth is Calathia?) which proves, on turning it up, to be a Gentian.