CONTENTS. PAGE 1 6 I. INTRODUCTION.—INTERPRETATION OF NATURE................. IV. SALEVE..... JUNCTION OF THE ARVE and the RHONE..... VI. DR. MALAN, DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, and Dr. GausSSEN. WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM IN THE SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. CHAPTER I. Introduction. Interpretation of Nature. THE Fasciculus of leaves from the journal of a summer's trave here presented to the reader, is more like a familiar letter than a book; it was written, at first, for the perusal of a few friends, and it makes no pretensions to depth or greatness, but is a quiet expression of thoughts and feelings, which any man may experience amidst the wonders of Alpine scenery. There is neither political economy, nor geology, nor botany, nor musical, nor theatrical, nor statistical information much attempted in it. And yet it is possible to find in such a journal a book which may beguile and benefit both the traveller among the Alps, and the Pilgrim at home; a book, "which meets us like a pleasant thought, when such are wanted." Mere descriptions, be the scenery ever so grand, are cloying and tiresome, and soon become tame. It is like living upon pound-cake and cream, or rather upon whip-syllabub. But if, while the eye is pleased the heart may be active, and the mind awakened into deep thought, if the thought be such as befits the immortal tenant of a world so beautiful, then will the mind and heart be at harmony with nature, and the language, which the very frame of the world speaks, will be understood, and the spirit which pervades such a world will imbue the being as a calm and gentle element. Nothing is more desirable than for a with nature, as well as with mankind. traveller so to converse We do not con men's features alone, when we meet them; we do not report their eyebrows, their noses, their lips, the color of their eyes, and think we have done with them; we learn their habits, thoughts, feelings; we speak to their souls. And Nature hath a soul as well as features. But a man's own soul must be awakened within him, and not his pleasure-loving faculties and propensities merely, if he would enter into communion with the soul that is in nature. Otherwise, it is as with a vacant stare that he sees mountains, forests, bright skies and sounding cataracts pass before him; otherwise, it is like a sleep-walker, that he himself wanders among them. What is not in himself he finds not in nature, and as all study is but a discipline to call forth our immortal faculties, no good will it do the man to range through nature as a study, if his inward being be asleep, if his nind be world-rusted and insensible. "It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze for ever, On that green light that lingers in the west; I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within." And hence the extreme and melancholy beauty of that pas sage in John Foster's writings, where he speaks of the power of external nature as an agent in our education, and laments the inward deficiency in many minds, which prevents our "foster-mother" from being able to instil into them her sweetest, most exquisite tones and lessons. "It might be supposed," he says, "that the scenes of nature, an amazing assemblage of phenomena, if their effect were not lost through familiarity, would have a powerful influence on all opening minds, and transfer into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a character and a color correspondent to the beauty, vicissitude and grandeur, which continually press on the senses. On minds of genius they often have this effect; and Beattie's Minstrel may be as just as it is a fascinating description of the feelings of such a mind. But on the greatest number this influence operates feebly; you will not see the process in children, nor the result in matre persons. The charms of nature are objects only of sight and hearing, not of sensibility and imagination. And even the sight and hearing do not receive impressions sufficiently distinct and forcible for clear recollection; it is not therefore strange that these impressions seldom go so much deeper than the senses, as to awaken pensiveness or enthusiasm, and fill the mind with an interior permanent scenery of beautiful images at its own command. This defect of fancy and sensibility is unfortunate amidst a creation infinitely rich with grand and beautiful objects, which, imparting something more than images to a mind adapted and habituated to converse with nature, inspire an exquisite sentiment, that seems like the emanation of a spirit residing in them. It is unfortunate, I have thought within these few minutes, while looking out on one of the most enchanting nights of the most interesting season of the year, and hearing the voices of a company of persons, to whom I can perceive that this soft and solemn shade over the earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes of cloud, the stars and the waning moon just risen, are all blank and indifferent." Unfortunate, indeed; for did not God design that the walls of our external abode should be, as it were, at least as the scaf folding wherewith to help build up the inward temple of the mind, and that the silent imagery upon the one should be reflected in the thoughtful treasures and instructive galleries of the other? Nature is as a book of hieroglyphics, which the individual mind must interpret. What can be more desirable than an interior permanent scenery of beautiful images, so formed? Much depends upon a man's inward spiritual state, which, even by itself, when its pulse beats in unison with His Spirit who rules universal nature, may supply what might have seemed an original defect of taste and sensibility. So the great metaphysician of New England, who never suspected himself, nor was suspected by others, of being a Poet, and whose character might have been deemed defective in its imaginative parts, was drawn, by his deep and intense communion with God and the love of his attributes, into such communion with external nature, and such sensitive experience of her loveliness, so simple and yet almost ecstatic, as Cowper himself might ha e envied. So certain it is that by the culti |