HAZEL. 
255 
HAZEL. 
PEACE, RECONCILIATION. 
There was a time when men were not united 
by any tie. Deaf to the voice of Nature, the 
mother would snatch from her famished son the 
wild fruit with which he was striving to appease 
the craving of hunger. If calamity reconciled 
them for a moment, all at once the sight of an 
oak loaded with acorps, or a beech-tree covered 
with mast, made them as bitter enemies as ever. 
The earth was then a scene of misery. There 
was neither law, religion, nor language. Man 
knew not his high prerogatives ; his reason was 
not yet awakened; and frequently he proved 
himself more cruel than the ferocious beasts, 
whose fearful howlings he imitated. 
The gods at length took pity on men. Apollo 
and Mercury made presents to each other, and 
descended to the earth. The god of harmony 
received from the son of Maia the shell of a 
tortoise, out of which he had constructed a lyre, 
