THE MANSE GARDEN. 49 



of Adam and Eve" for what it was. The former 

 will induce you to realize by sight what the poet has 

 so beautifully figured upon your imagination; and 

 the latter, when you are charmed with the first simple 

 delights of man in watching the progress of flower 

 and tree, will remind you that human imagination 

 cannot go further in the conception of earthly felicity 

 than the Creator did, when he put the best of his 

 creatures (two, they were not one) into a garden to 

 keep and dress it. I pity thee, O brother, if thou, 

 being alone, art incapable of receiving this part of 

 my prescription ! There is nothing that bears any 

 resemblance to paradise for thee. There is no beauty 

 in the rose, or the ripe cherry, except you have more 

 eyes and more lips than your own. But there is 

 more of the prescription, arid perhaps more suited to 

 your case. 



Independently of the pleasure, let the use of your 

 garden be considered the use, I mean not for your 

 living but for your life. Your mode of life is se- 

 dentary; you walk abroad, it is true; but if you 

 happen to see your face reflected from the deep black 

 pool, as you wander by the river side, you will dis- 

 cover that the last theme of your studies has left its 

 print still upon your brow, and you will infer from 

 that index, that the solitary walk, which has set the 

 limbs in motion, has produced no change of action in 

 the brain, the heart, the liver, or other organs which 

 are strongly affected by the exercise of the thinking 

 faculties. But besides the walk taken purely for 

 health, you have many out-of-door duties, to the 

 performance of which you must travel no small dis- 

 tance; and hence you are apt to imagine that the 

 c 



