'
'We must make a pilgrimage some day to the Maggiore, Annabel,' said
Herbert. 'It is hallowed ground to me now.'
Their meal was finished, the servants brought their work, and books,
and drawings; and Herbert, resuming his natural couch, re-opened his
Plato, but Venetia ran into the villa, and returned with a volume.
'You must read us the golden age, papa,' she said, as she offered him,
with a smile, his favourite Don Quixote.
'You must fancy the Don looking earnestly upon a handful of acorns,'
said Herbert, opening the book, 'while he exclaims, "O happy age!
which our first parents called the age of gold! not because gold, so
much adored in this iron age, was then easily purchased, but because
those two fatal words, _meum_ and _tuum_, were distinctions unknown to
the people of those fortunate times; for all things were in common in
that holy age: men, for their sustenance, needed only to lift their
hands, and take it from the sturdy oak, whose spreading arms liberally
invited them to gather the wholesome savoury fruit; while the clear
springs, and silver rivulets, with luxuriant plenty, afforded them
their pure refreshing water. In hollow trees, and in the clefts
of rocks, the labouring and industrious bees erected their little
commonwealths, that men might reap with pleasure and with ease the
sweet and fertile harvest of their toils, The tough and strenuous
cork-trees did, of themselves, and without other art than their native
liberality, dismiss and impart their broad light bark, which served to
cover those lowly huts, propped up with rough-hewn stakes, that were
first built as a shelter against the inclemencies of the air.
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