A _cowslip_ caught my sight! my blood rushed to my heart--and,
shuddering, I started on my feet, felt no fatigue, knew of no wound,
and joined my party. I had not seen this flower for ten years! but it
probably saved my life--an European officer, wounded and alone, might
have tempted the avarice of some of the numerous and savage followers
of an Indian army. In the cooler and calmer hours of reflection since,
I have often thought that this appearance was a mere phantom, an
illusion--the offspring of weakness: I saw it but for a moment, and
too imperfectly to be assured of reality; and whatever I believed at
the time seems now to have been a painting on the mind rather than an
object of vision; but how that image started up. I conjecture not--the
effect was immediate and preservative. This flower was again seen
in Spain: I had the command of an advance party, and in one of the
recesses of the Pyrenees, of the romantic, beautiful Pyrenees, upon a
secluded bank, surrounded by a shrubbery so lovely as to be noticed by
many--was a _cowslip_. It was now nearly twenty years since I had seen
it in Mysore: I did not start; but a cold and melancholy chill came
over me; yet I might possibly have gazed long on this humble little
flower, and recalled many dormant thoughts, had not a sense of duty
(for we momentarily expected an attack) summoned my attentions to the
realities of life: so, drawing the back of my hand across my eyes, I
cheered my party with, "Forward, lads," and pursued my route, and saw
it no more, until England and all her flowery meadows met my view;
but many days and service had wasted life, and worn the fine edge of
sensibility away; they were now before me in endless profusion, almost
unheeded, and without excitement; I viewed not the cowslip, when
fifty, as I had done with the eyes of nineteen.
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