"In the primrose, as a whole, we cannot help being struck by an exceeding softness and delicacy; there is nothing sharp, strong, or incisive; the smell is 'the faintest and most ethereal perfume,' as Mrs. Stowe has called it in her 'Sunny Memories,' though she was mistaken in saying that it disappears when we pluck the flower. It is meant to impress us as altogether soft and yielding. One of the most beautiful points in the primrose is the manner in which _the paleness of the flowers is taken up by the herbage_. This paleness seems to hang about the plant like a mystery, for though the leaves of the primrose may at times show a trace of the steady paleness of the cowslip, it is more usually confined to their undersurfaces and the white flower-stalks with their clothing of down. And when we are looking at the primrose one or other of these downy, changeful portions is continually coming into view, so that we get a feeling as if there hung about the whole plant a clothing of soft, evanescent mist, thickening about the center of the plant and the undersurfaces of the leaves which are less exposed to the sun. And then we reach one of the main expressions of the primrose. When we look at the pale, sweet flowers, and the soft-toned green of the herbage, softened further here and there by that uncertain mist of down, the dryness of the leaf and fur enters forcibly into our impression of the plant, giving a sense of extreme delicacy and need of shelter, as if it were some gentle creature which shrinks from exposure to the weather." [Illustration: CARNATIONS AND GILLIFLOWERS; PRIMROSES AND COWSLIPS; AND DAFFODILS: FROM PARKINSON] The Greeks associated the idea of melancholy with this flower. They had a story of a handsome youth, son of Flora and Priapus, whose betrothed bride died. His grief was so excessive that he died, too, and the gods than changed his body into a primrose. In Shakespeare's time, the primrose was also associated with early death; and it is one of the flowers thrown upon the corse of _Fidele_, whose lovely, wistful face is compared to the "pale primrose." Thus _Arviragus_ exclaims as he gazes on the beautiful youth, _Fidele_, the assumed name of _Imogen_ in disguise: I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose.[21] _Perdita_, in "The Winter's Tale,"[22] mentions Pale primroses that die unmarried Ere they can behold bright Phœbus in his strength. Shakespeare appreciated the delicate hue and perfume of this flower. He seems to be alluding to both qualities when he makes _Hermia_ touch _Helena's_ memory by the following words: And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie.[23] Other English poets speak of the flower as "the pale," or "the dim." Milton writes: