3-082-048 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Violets, by Otto Lingner, 1895. 'Soon will come the time when violets "dapple all the brakes," and seem, in Shakspere's language, "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes or Cytherea's breath." Wise would be the statesman who annexed the modest violet as his favourite flower, for surely it would run the primrose hard for popularity. They bring their delicious perfume into the most unsavoury streets of the city, as well as into the daintiest of boudoirs; while many a patient has the monotony of the hospital relieved by the flower which speaks a message of quiet country peace and health. By permission of the Berlin Photographic Society'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.