Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/274

 250 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1852,

the senses with the most agreeable color and the sweetest odor ; and, at the same time, bees and other insects, not to mention the humming-bird, extract honey from their nectaries, and gather wax from their effete pollen.&quot; Linnaeus himself calls the calyx the tlialamus, or bridal chamber ; and the corolla the aulaeum, or tapestry of it, and proceeds to explain thus every part of the flower.

Who knows but evil spirits might corrupt the flowers themselves, rob them of their fragrance and their fair hues, and turn their marriage into a secret shame and defilement ? Already they are of various qualities, and there is one whose nuptials fill the lowlands in June with the odor of carrion.

The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful, too fair to be remem bered. I have had thoughts about it, but they are among the most fleeting and irrecoverable in my experience. It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelation, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

A true marriage will differ in no wise from illumination. In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delir ium of joy, as when a youth embraces his be trothed virgin. The ultimate delights of a true marriage are one with this.