Matrimonial and sexual
circumstances especially were often the objects of my father's gravest
condemnation and rebuke. The way in which he spoke about these matters
showed me that they formed one of the most oppressive and difficult
parts of human conduct; and, in my youth and innocence, I felt a deep
pain and sorrow that man alone, among all creatures, should be doomed to
these separations of sex, whereby the right path was made so difficult
for him to find. I felt it a real necessity for the satisfaction of my
heart and mind to reconcile this difficulty, and yet could find no way
to do so. How could I at that age, and in my position? But my eldest
brother, who, like all my elder brothers, lived away from home, came to
stay with us for a time; and one day, when I expressed my delight at
seeing the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me aware of a
similar sexual difference in plants. Now was my spirit at rest. I
recognised that what had so weighed upon me was an institution spread
over all nature, to which even the silent, beautiful race of flowers was
submitted. From that time humanity and nature, the life of the soul and
the life of the flower, were closely knit together in my mind; and I can
still see my hazel buds, like angels, opening for me the great God's
temple of Nature.
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