PikCTIi AND VIRGINIA» 



retutn home, flie prefied them to carry away any 

 thing which feemed to have given them peculiar 

 fatisfaelion, veiling the neceffity of accepting her 

 prefents, under the pretext of their novelty, or of 

 their fingularity. If (he remarked their clothes to 

 be exceffively tattered, flie, with the confent of her 

 mother, feleded fome of her own, and charged 

 Paul to go by ftcalth, and depofit them at the door 

 of their cottages» Thus, flie did good, after the 

 manner of the Deity ; concealing the benefactrefs, 

 and fhewing the benefit. 



You gentlemen of Europe, whofe minds are 

 tainted, from your early infancy, by fo many pre- 

 judices, incompatible with happinefs, you are un- 

 able to conceive, how Nature can beftow fo much 

 illumination, and fo many pleafures. Your (ouls, 

 circumfcribed within a fmall fphere of human 

 knowledge, foon attain the term of their artificial 

 enjoyments ; but nature and the heart are inex- 

 hauftible. Paid and Virgima had no time-pieces, 

 nor ahnanacks, nor books cf chronology, of hif- 

 tory, nor of philofophy : the periods of their lives 

 were regulated by thofe of Nature. They knew 

 the hour of the day by the (hadow of the trees j 

 the feafons, by the times when they produced their 

 flowers, or their fruits ; and yeais, by the number 

 of their harvefts. Thcfe delightful images dif- 

 fufed the greateft charms over thjeir converfation. 



F 2 ** It 



