Hearts and Flowers

"Hearts and Flowers" is a song composed by Theodore Moses Tobani (with words by Mary D. Brine) and published in 1899, though its melody originally appears in a collection called "Wintermärchen" written by the Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka in 1891. Through its use accompanying certain silent films, the instrumental violin version has come to symbolize all that is melodramatic, sentimental or mock-tragic. Indeed, the humming of the tune is often combined with the miming of violin-playing to indicate mock-sympathy at someone's misfortunes.

The term 'hearts-and-flowers' has entered the English language with the sense "extreme sentimentality, cloying sweetness".