At a distance, I
thought she was alone; but as I hastened towards her, in order to help her
on, I perceived that she held Paul by the arm, who was almost entirely
enveloped in the same cavity, and both were laughing heartily at being
sheltered together under an umbrella of their own invention. Those two
charming faces, placed within the petticoat, swelled by the wind, recalled
to my mind the children of Leda, enclosed within the same shell.
"Their sole study was how to please and assist each other; for of all other
things they were ignorant, and knew neither how to read nor write. They
were never disturbed by researches into past times, nor did their curiosity
extend beyond the bounds of that mountain. They believed the world ended at
the shores of their own island, and all their ideas and affections were
confined within its limits. Their mutual tenderness, and that of their
mothers, employed all the activity of their souls. Their tears had never
been called forth by long application to useless sciences. Their minds had
never been wearied by lessons of morality, superfluous to bosoms
unconscious of ill. They had never been taught that they must not steal,
because every thing with them was in common; or be intemperate, because
their simple food was left to their own discretion; or false, because they
had no truth to conceal. Their young imaginations had never been terrified
by the idea that God has punishments in store for ungrateful children,
since with them filial affection arose naturally from maternal fondness.
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