Lamartine's Mother And The Bible

The hero of the French Revolution thus opsivj tha keautiful narrative of his travels in the Eat ; - My mother liad received from bers, on the death-bed, a beautifni copy of the Bible of Royaumont, in wMch shetaught me to read when I was a llttle child. This Bible had engravurs on gncred subject? ow every page. Thcy depicted Sarah, Joseph and Samuel ; and above all those patiiarchal scènes, in which the solemn and primitive nature of the E ast was blonded with the simple and wonderful hvw of the fathers of mankind. When I had repeated my leison well, and read with only a fault or two the half poge of historica! matter my mother uncovered the engraving, and holding the book open in Vier lap.showed and explained it to me as my recompense. She was endowed, by nature, with a mind as dIous as it was tender, and with the most senYitive and vivid iïwfcgintttton. All lier tho ts were gentiraents, and every sentiment was an image Her bfautiPul, nol.lo and bemgn counlohTnce reftecterl, in its radiant physiognomy, all that glowed in her l.eart, and all that was uainted in her thoughts ; and the silvery , atíeclionate, solemn and impassioned tone of her voico, added to all that sho said, an accent ot trength, grace and love, which sull sounds in my ar after six years of absence. The sight of these engravuiM, the explanalions, and the poetical comrnentaries of my mother, inspirad me, from the most tendsr mfancv wilh a taste and inclinatior, for biblical lor, " From t'ie love of the things themselves, to the desire of seeing the places where these thirgs had occurred, there was but a step. 1 l.urned, therefore, from the age of eight ycars with a desire to go and visit those mouma.ns on which God descended; those deserts where the angel pointed out to Hagar the bidden spring whrnce her famished cliüd, dying with thirstT might derive refreshment ; those nvers which flowed irom the terrestnal piiradise- the spot in the firmament af which the angels were seen asconding and descending Jacob s laJJer. The desire grew with my growth and streinnhened. I was always dreannng of travelling in the East. I never ceased arranging in mv mind a vist and rebgious epopee, ot u-l,ich these beauliiu! 6é .fcoW be the pnncipal cene.