n search of those herbs and flowers,
when, owing to the severity of the heat or cold, they were not to be
found in the fields.

This adoration, while in consonance with the religious principles
instilled into him from the cradle by his father, greatly exceeded what
is usual even in the most devout. It was a fraternal and submissive
love, like that which he had entertained for his father; it was a
confused mixture of familiarity, protection, and idolatry, very similar
to the feeling which the mothers of men of genius entertain for their
illustrious sons; it was the respectful and protecting tenderness which
the strong warrior bestows on the youthful prince; it was an
identification of himself with the image; it was pride; it was elation
as for a personal good. It seemed as if this image symbolized for him
his tragic fate, his noble origin, his early orphanhood, his poverty,
his cares, the injustice of men, his solitary state in the world, and
perhaps too some presentiment of his future sufferings.

Probably nothing of all this was clear at the time to the mind of the
hapless boy, but something resembling it must have been the tumult of
confused thoughts that palpitated in the depths of that childlike,
unwavering, absolute, and exclusive devotion. For him there was neither
God nor the Virgin, neither saints nor angels; there was only the "Child
of the Ball," not with relation to any profound mystery, but in himself,
in his present form, with his artistic figure, his dress of gold tissue,
his crown of false stones, his blonde head, his charming countenance,
and the blue-painted globe which he held in his hand, and which was
surmounted by a little silver-gilt cross, in sign of the redemption of
the world.

And this was the cause and reason why the acolytes of Santa Maria de la
Cabeza first, all the boys of the town afterward, and finally the more
respectable and sedate persons, bestowed on Manuel the extraordinary
name of "The Child of the Ball": we know not whether by way of applause
of such vehement idolatry, and to commit him, as it were, to the
protection of the Christ-Child himself; or as a sarcastic
antiphrasis,--seeing that this appellation is sometimes used in the
place as a term of comparison for the happiness of the very fortunate;
or as a prophecy of the valor for which the son of Venegas was to be one
day celebrated, and the terror he was to inspire,--since the most
hyperbolical expression that can be employe