Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers by Thomas De Quincey
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page 34 of 482 (07%)
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separate occasions. All this I mention to take away any appearance of a
vulgar attempt to create omens; but still, in the very act of confessing the simple truth, and thus weakening the marvellous character of the anecdote, I must notice it as a strange instance of the '_Sortes Miltonianae_,'--that precisely at such a moment as this I should find thrown in my way, should feel tempted to take up, and should open, a volume containing such a passage as the following: and observe, moreover, that although the volume, _once being taken up_, would naturally open where it had been most frequently read, there were, however, many passages which had been read _as_ frequently--or more so. The particular passage upon which I opened at this moment was that most beautiful one in which the fatal morning separation is described between Adam and his bride--that separation so pregnant with wo, which eventually proved the occasion of the mortal transgression--the last scene between our first parents at which both were innocent and both were happy--although the superior intellect already felt, and, in the slight altercation preceding this separation, had already expressed a dim misgiving of some coming change: these are the words, and in depth of pathos they have rarely been approached:-- 'Oft he to her his charge of quick return Repeated; she to him as oft engag'd To be returned by noon amid the bow'r, And all things in best order to invite Noon-tide repast, or afternoon's repose. Oh much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve! Of thy presumed return, event perverse! Thou never from that hour in Paradise Found'st either sweet repast, or sound repose.' |
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