This instinctive influence, which the daughters of Eve universally exercise over the sons of Adam, is not more irresistible in the present day, than it proved in the case of their great progenitor. _Love_, however disguised--and how could it be more beautifully than by the scriptural penman?--_love, in its literal and all-absorbing seductiveness_, was the simple but fascinating aberration couched under the figure of the _forbidden apple_. All the illusions of fancy resolve themselves into this sweet abyss. The dreams of commentators may, therefore, henceforward be spared; the calculations of bookmakers, on this topic, dispensed with: whatever be _my_ fate, one consolation, at least, awaits me, that in addition to the _Towers_, I shall have expounded the mysteries of Genesis. In the _Irish_ language, which, as being that of ancient Persia, or _Iran_, must be the oldest in the world, and of which the _Hebrew_, brought away by Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees,[245] is but a distant and imperfect branch,--well, in this primordial tongue, the nursery at once of science, of religion, and of philosophy, all _mysteries_, also, have been matured: and it will irrefutably manifest itself, that in it, exclusively, was woven that elegantly-wrought veil, of colloquial illusiveness, which shrouds the _nature_ of our first parents’ downfall. How, think you, was this accomplished? By assigning to certain terms a twofold signification, of which one represented a certain _passion_, _quality_, or _virtue_, and the other its _sensible index_. To the latter alone had the _multitude_ any access; while the sanctity of the former was guarded against them by all the terrors of religious interdicts. For instance, in the example before us, _Budh_, or _Fiodh_,--which is the same thing,--means, primarily, _lingam_, and secondarily, a _tree_. Of these, the latter, which was the popular acceptation, was only the _outward signal_ of the former, which was the _inward_ mystified _passion_, comprehended only by the initiated. When, therefore, we are told that Eve was desired not to taste of the _tree_, _i.e._ _Budh_, we are to understand that she was prohibited what _Budh_ meant in its true signification, viz. _lingam_: in other words, that when cautioned against the _Budh_, it was not an _insensible tree_, its symbolic import, that was meant thereby, but the _vital phallus_, its _animate_ prototype:--that, in short, “_missis_ ambagibus,” the word _Budh_ was to be taken, _not figuratively_, but _literally_.[246] [Illustration: FROM THE RUINS OF THE PALENCIAN CITY.]