Towards the close of a most lovely spring day--and such a lovely one,
to my fancy, has never beamed from the heavens since--I carelessly
plucked a cowslip from a copse side, and gave it to _Constance_. 'Twas
on that beautiful evening when she told me all her heart! as, seated
on a mossy bank, she dissected, with downcast eyes, every part of the
flower; chives, pointal, and petal, all were displayed; though I am
sure she never even thought of the class. My destiny through life I
considered as fixed from that hour.--Shortly afterwards I was called,
by the death of a relative, to a distant part of England; upon
my return, _Constance_ was no more. The army was not my original
destination; but my mind began to be enfeebled by hourly musing upon
one subject alone, without cessation or available termination; yet
reason enough remained to convince me, that, without change and
excitement, it would degenerate into fatuity.
The preparation and voyage to India, new companions, and ever-changing
scenes, hushed my feelings, and produced a calm that might be called
a state of blessedness--a condition in which the ignoble and inferior
ingredients of our nature were subdued by the divinity of mind. Years
rolled on in almost constant service; nor do I remember many of the
events of that time, even with interest or regret. In one advance of
the army to which I was attached, we had some skirmishing with the
irregulars of our foe; the pursuit was rapid, and I fell behind my
detachment, wounded and weary, in ascending a ghaut, resting in the
jungle, with languid eyes fixed on the ground, without any particular
feeling but that of fatigue, and the smarting of my shoulder.
A _cowslip_ caught my sight! my blood rushed to my heart--and,
shuddering, I started on my feet, felt no fatigue, knew of no wound,
and joined my party. I had not seen this flower for ten years! but it
probably saved my life--an European officer, wounded and alone, might
have tempted the avarice of some of the numerous and savage followers
of an Indian army. In the cooler and calmer hours of reflection since,
I have often thought that this appearance was a mere phantom, an
illusion--the offspring of weakness: I saw it but for a moment, and
too imperfectly to be assured of reality; and whatever I believed at
the time seems now to have been a painting on the mind rather than an
object of vision; but how that image started up. I conjecture not--the
effect was immediate and preservative. This flower was again seen
in Spain: I had the command of an advance party, and in one of the
recesses of the Pyrenees, of the romantic, beautiful Pyrenees, upon a
secluded bank, surrounded by a shrubbery so lovely as to be noticed by
many--was a _cowslip_. It was now nearly twenty years since I had seen
it in Mysore: I did not start; but a cold and melancholy chill came
over me; yet I might possibly have gazed long on this humble little
flower, and recalled many dormant thoughts, had not a sense of duty
(for we momentarily expected an attack) summoned my attentions to the
realities of life: so, drawing the back of my hand across my eyes, I
cheered my party with, "Forward, lads," and pursued my route, and saw
it no more, until England and all her flowery meadows met my view;
but many days and service had wasted life, and worn the fine edge of
sensibility away; they were now before me in endless profusion, almost
unheeded, and without excitement; I viewed not the cowslip, when
fifty, as I had done with the eyes of nineteen.
* * * * *