 In the language of flowers, a honeyflower and a pansy left by a lover for his beloved means, "I am thinking of our forbidden love".In 1858, the writer James Shirley Hibberd wrote that the French custom of giving a bride a bouquet of pansies (thoughts) and marigolds (cares) symbolized the woes of domestic life rather than marital bliss.A German fable tells of how the pansy lost its perfume.