“A primrose by a river’s brim— A yellow primrose is to him, And it is nothing more.”
The vital element that pervades all nature, uniting it in a chain of harmonious progression, the eternal laws of which even his stolid spirit cannot ultimately avoid, however much he now seeks to bury it beneath the grosser particles of matter, escapes his perception. Guided only by his finite, perishable sensorium, in vain attempt to grasp at once the entire treasure, he often plunges his suicidal knife into the ovary which daily laid him a golden egg. Thus man destroys his own birthright through brutal ignorance and sensual impatience. The truly wise count all things at their right worth, and find a sympathy in every natural object, in varied degree, according as it speaks to them the thought of a common Creator, and connects them in one common end. They have, therefore, a double enjoyment. First, that which springs from the right material use of every object or sense; secondly, the language which both speak to them of hope and faith in more refined enjoyments and more perfect conditions of existence. The very trials and incompleteness of present experiences are so many testimonies of future and nobler realizations. Thus God speaks as kindly through the so-called evils and disappointments of life, as through the more readily distinguished blessings; for if they see in the latter hope and happiness, so in the former they distinguish that chastening which, through paternal discipline, seeks to guide and strengthen.
Few situations could be more trying to moral firmness than the circumstances under which we left Olmedo and Beatriz. Free from all external restraint of church discipline, with no censorship beyond their own consciences; reason and passion both pleading their right to be united; their past by its friendship casting a bright light upon their future and closer union; doomed to pass their lives, while still in the flush of life, away from all that had made other homes dear; twin exiles, each sustaining the other and now alone, amid a joyous seductive nature, every motion and aspect of which was pleading for love;—was there not in all this sufficient temptation to have overcome them? Neither were ascetic by nature nor principle. No two human beings, by organization, were better fitted to enjoy lawfully all the indulgences wholesome instincts and the tenderness of united hearts craved. The very restraint which former circumstances and the absence of love had produced, now that both were removed, but made them more susceptible to the reaction. We must not, therefore, judge that kiss too harshly. Less passion would have removed them from our sympathies. Now they have vindicated their humanity, will they be able to vindicate their duty? Duty as their religion taught them!