Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/273

 asr.35.] VIRGINITY AND MARRIAGE. 249

all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to. We may love and not elevate one another. The love that takes us as it finds us degrades us. What watch we must keep over the fairest and purest of our affec tions, lest there be some taint about them ! May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love !

There is to be attributed to sensuality the loss to language of how many pregnant symbols ! Flowers, which, by their infinite hues and fra grance, celebrate the marriage of the plants, are intended for a symbol of the open and unsus pected beauty of all true marriage, when man s flowering season arrives.

Virginity, too, is a budding flower, and by an impure marriage the virgin is deflowered. Who ever loves flowers, loves virgins and chastity. Love and lust are as far asunder as a flower- garden is from a brothel.

J. Biberg, in the &quot; Amoenitates Botanies,&quot; edited by Linnaeus, observes (I translate from the Latin) : &quot; The organs of generation, which, in the animal kingdom, are for the most part concealed by nature, as if they were to be ashamed of, in the vegetable kingdom are ex posed to the eyes of all ; and, when the nuptials of plants are celebrated, it is wonderful what delight they afford to the beholder, refreshing