My dinner ended and my lesson learnt, we sate out again. Let us (said the Prefect) take the benefit of this long shady walk, and go to the grove at the end of it. By the way, I will explain some matters relating to what I am going to show thee. Adam had just been driven out of Paradise, (continued the Prefect:) The tree, from which the fatal apple was gathered, disappeared: Innocence, everlasting peace, unmixt pleasure vanished; and death covered the earth with her mournful vail. Witnesses of Adam’s sin and punishment, the elementary 213spirits remained in a consternation mixt with astonishment and fear. All was silent, like the dreadful calm, which, in a gloomy night, succeeds the flashes of lightening.
One of our spirits perceiving on the ground the remains of the fatal apple, hastily took them up, and found three Kernels: these were so many treasures.
The forbidden tree, which was the cause of Man’s misery, was to have been the cause of h............