Now, whether Vesta was fire, or fire Vesta, or whether the earth and Vesta were one and the same fire, we are not in a condition to determine; and as there are no muniments of any Insurance Office to throw light on the matter,—even the "Sun" had not then begun business in this line,—the curiosity of the curious must remain unquenched. This, however we know, that Vesta's waiting-women;—we beg their pardon, the goddess's lady's-maids,—the Vestales of her Temple, had, beyond the usual routine of their business, such as dressing and undressing her; waiting her whims, and getting up her linen, the onerous charge of watching and guarding the holy fire, and lighting it once a year, whether it required lighting or not. The first of March was the appointed day for this ceremony; though the first of April might have been, under all the circumstances, a more appropriate anniversary. We have no distinct records as to whether these young women were familiar with the application of flint and steel to tinder, or whether the royal-born Lucifer had, in those days, taken out a patent for his matches; there is little reason for regret, however, in this uncertainty, inasmuch as neither the one nor the other could have been made use of. The holy fire might be supplied from no common flame, and they had therefore to ask "the favour of a light" from the pure and unpolluted rays of the Sun.
Now we humbly conceive that our motive for introducing this interesting little classical episode must be obvious from its conclusion.
We were talking of one—though certainly not in any probability a Vestal virgin—whose "sacred flame" had gone out, and we felt we should be expected to say something of its re-lighting. Thinking, preparatory to writing, we recollected all that we have written, and we were interested and amused with the identity of means employed for a common end two thousand years ago and in the present day; as it then was, so it now is, managed by attraction.
It has just occurred to our reflective mind, that the imaginative people before-mentioned must have been figurative also; and meant by earth, human clay,—and by the fire therein, love. We should like to know what love will not do; and, until we are told, we shall deem it capable, as the ancients did fire, of producing everything.
And now a few words upon the marriage of a young widow. We might be expected to discuss the question of second marriages generally, and weigh the arguments pro and con,—the romance against the reality of life; but we decline doing so at present, on the ground that, right or wrong, young widows at any rate have ever had, if possible, and even will have, a second string to their bow, should grim Death rudely snap the first,—a second arrow to their quiver, should the first be lost "beyond recovery."
She marries again,—may we say, loves? If she has loved before, we may not. He is in the grave, and her "heart is in the coffin there." But she marries; and, though she may exclaim,
"No more—no more,—oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,"
in the spirit of the words,—she takes nothing from their truth by substituting one reading for another:
"No more—no more,—oh! never more on me