2 74 Musings by Cantp-Fire and Wayside 



magnolia. Amid the recesses and paths of this 

 opulent scenery wandered Eve, sweeter than the 

 nectarines and fairer than the flowers. 



Now, what was Paradise? I was born in it my- 

 self, and am, therefore, prepared both to admire 

 and vindicate the fidelity of Moses in his descrip- 

 tions of Adam and nature. Eden was, as he well 

 and truly as well as poetically says, God's garden. 

 It owed nothing of its beauty to man. All city- 

 living men — women not so much — who were fortu- 

 nate in a similar nativity, in their retrospective 

 moments sympathize with Eve in her lament, 

 "Must I thus leave thee. Paradise!" and look with 

 grief upon the circling sword of fire which turns 

 every way to make recovery impossible. 



Magnificent were the fruit-bearing trees of Para- 

 dise, in stature of trunk and arm, and in cloudy 

 gracefulness of crown: the walnut, hickory, mul- 

 berry, hackberry, chestnut, coffee-nut, beech, 

 cherry, hawthorn, persimmon, pawpaw, and en- 

 tangled in their lofty tops, the mighty grape-vine, 

 hanging its shining and multitudinous clusters in 

 the scarlet and golden foliage of October. There 

 arose the sweet-hearted maple, its bole pitted by the 

 bills of sipping birds and black with sugar charred 

 in the sun. The ground below, wherever the trees 

 allowed light to penetrate, was woven over with 

 vines of the dewberry, the blackberry, the whortle- 

 berry, the strawberry — the feast garnished with 

 goldenrod and aster, while the lakes were fields of 



