“That is not the sympathy I mean. I speak of love, the great mystery and principle of life; the intoxicating revel of youth; the sober delight of age. Look forth, my prince, and behold how at this blest season all nature is full of love. Every created being has its mate; the most insignificant bird sings to its paramour; the very beetle wooes its lady-beetle in the dust, and yon butterflies which you see fluttering high above the tower and toying in the air, are happy in each other’s loves. Alas, my prince! hast thou spent so many of the precious days of youth without knowing anything of love? Is there no gentle being of another sex--no beautiful princess nor lovely damsel who has ensnared your heart, and filled your bosom with a soft tumult of pleasing pains and tender wishes?” “I begin to understand,” said the prince, sighing; “such a tumult I have more than once experienced, without knowing the cause; and where should I seek for an object such as you describe, in this dismal solitude?” A little further conversation ensued, and the first amatory lesson of the prince was complete. “Alas!” said he, “if love be indeed such a delight, and its interruption such a misery, Allah forbid that I should mar the joy of any of its votaries.” He opened the cage, took out the dove, and having fondly kissed it, carried it to the window. “Go, happy bird,” said he, “rejoice with the partner of thy heart in the days of youth and spring-time. Why should I make thee a fellow-prisoner in this dreary tower, where love can never enter?” The dove flapped its wings in rapture, gave one vault into the air, and then swooped downward on whistling wings to the blooming bowers of the Darro. The prince followed him with his eyes, and then gave way to bitter repining. The singing of the birds, which once delighted him, now added to his bitterness. Love! love! love! Alas, poor youth! he now understood the strain. His eyes flashed fire when next he beheld the sage Bonabben. “Why hast thou kept me in this abject ignorance?” cried he. “Why has the great mystery and principle of life been withheld from me, in which I find the meanest insect is so learned? Behold all nature is in a revel of delight. Every created being rejoices with its mate. This--this is the love about which I have sought instruction. Why am I alone debarred its enjoyment? Why has so much of my youth been wasted without a knowledge of its raptures?” The sage Bonabben saw that all further reserve was useless; for the prince had acquired the dangerous and forbidden knowledge. He revealed to him, therefore, the predictions of the astrologers, and the precautions that had been taken in his education to avert the threatened evils. “And now, my prince,” added he, “my life is in your hands. Let the king your father discover that you have learned the passion of love while under my guardianship, and my head must answer for it.”