But, all this while, we have been standing by Zenobia's grave. I have
never since beheld it, but make no question that the grass grew all the
better, on that little parallelogram of pasture land, for the decay of
the beautiful woman who slept beneath. How Nature seems to love us!
And how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh or a complaint, she
converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest one--that of a
conscious intellectual life and sensibility has been untimely balked!
While Zenobia lived, Nature was proud of her, and directed all eyes
upon that radiant presence, as her fairest handiwork. Zenobia
perished. Will not Nature shed a tear? Ah, no!--she adopts the
calamity at once into her system, and is just as well pleased, for
aught we can see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that grew out of
Zenobia's heart, as with all the beauty which has bequeathed us no
earthly representative except in this crop of weeds. It is because the
spirit is inestimable that the lifeless body is so little valued.