"[22]
Is its flame quenchless? and are those gates that keep the way indeed
passable no more? or is it not rather that we no more desire to enter?
For what can we conceive of that first Eden which we might not yet win
back, if we chose? It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well: the
flowers are always striving to grow wherever we suffer them; and the
fairer, the closer. There may, indeed, have been a Fall of Flowers, as
a Fall of Man; but assuredly creatures such as we are can now fancy
nothing lovelier than roses and lilies, which would grow for us side
by side, leaf overlapping leaf, till the Earth was white and red with
them, if we cared to have it so. And Paradise was full of pleasant
shades and fruitful avenues. Well: what hinders us from covering as
much of the world as we like with pleasant shade, and pure blossom,
and goodly fruit? Who forbids its valleys to be covered over with corn
till they laugh and sing? Who prevents its dark forests, ghostly and
uninhabitable, from being changed into infinite orchards, wreathing
the hills with frail-floreted snow, far away to the half-lighted
horizon of April, and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with
glow of clustered food? But Paradise was a place of peace, we say, and
all the animals were gentle servants to us.
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