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. Well: the world would yet
be a place of peace if we were all peacemakers, and gentle service
should we have of its creatures if we gave them gentle mastery. But so
long as we make sport of slaying bird and beast, so long as we choose
to contend rather with our fellows than with our faults, and make
battlefield of our meadows instead of pasture--so long, truly, the
Flaming Sword will still turn every way, and the gates of Eden remain
barred close enough, till we have sheathed the sharper flame of our
own passions, and broken down the closer gates of our own hearts.

I have been led to see and feel this more and more, as I consider the
service which the flowers and trees, which man was at first appointed
to keep, were intended to render to him in return for his care; and
the services they still render to him, as far as he allows their
influence, or fulfils his own task towards them. For what infinite