Paul and Virginia . e was a gum tree, under the shade of which Paul V, was accustomed to sit to contemplate the sea when agitatedby storms. On the bark of this tree I engraved the follow-ing lines from Virgil : PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 105 Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes! Happy art thou, my son, in knowing only the pastoral divinities. And over the door of Madame de la Tours cottage,where the families so frequently met, I placed this line: At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita. Here dwell a calm conscience and a life that knows not deceit. But Virginia did not approve of my Latin: she s
Paul and Virginia . e was a gum tree, under the shade of which Paul V, was accustomed to sit to contemplate the sea when agitatedby storms. On the bark of this tree I engraved the follow-ing lines from Virgil : PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 105 Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes! Happy art thou, my son, in knowing only the pastoral divinities. And over the door of Madame de la Tours cottage,where the families so frequently met, I placed this line: At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita. Here dwell a calm conscience and a life that knows not deceit. But Virginia did not approve of my Latin: she said that what I had placed at£,< the foot of her flag-staffwas too long and toolearned. I should have liked bet-ter, added she, to haveseen inscribed, EVEE AGITATED,YET CONSTANT. Such a motto, I answered,would have been still moreapplicable to virtue. My re-flection made her blush. The delicacy of sentimentof these happy families wasmanifested in everything aroundthem. They gave the tenderest names to objects in. 106 PAUL AND VIRGINIA. appearance the most indifferent. A border of orange,plantain, and rose-apple trees, planted round a green swardwhere Virginia and Paul sometimes danced, received thename of Concord. An old tree, beneath the shade ofwhich Madame de la Tour and Margaret used to recounttheir misfortunes, was called the Burial-place of bestowed the names of Brittany and Normandy ontwo little plots of ground where they had sown corn, straw-berries, and peas. Domingo and Mary, wishing in imita-tion of their mistresses, to recall to mind Angola andFoullepointe, the places of their birth in Africa, gavethose names to the little fields where the grass was sownwith which they wove their baskets, and where they hadplanted a calabash tree. Thus, by cultivating the pro-ductions of their respective climates these exiled familiescherished the dear illusions which bind us to our nativecountry and softened their regrets in a foreign land. Alas !I have seen these tr
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