are the injuries which make us quarrel with human nature! At
present black melancholy hovers round my footsteps; and sorrow sheds
a mildew over all the future prospects, which hope no longer gilds.

A rainy morning prevented my enjoying the pleasure the view of a
picturesque country would have afforded me; for though this road
passed through a country a greater extent of which was under
cultivation than I had usually seen here, it nevertheless retained
all the wild charms of Norway. Rocks still enclosed the valleys,
the great sides of which enlivened their verdure. Lakes appeared
like branches of the sea, and branches of the sea assumed the
appearance of tranquil lakes; whilst streamlets prattled amongst the
pebbles and the broken mass of stone which had rolled into them,
giving fantastic turns to the trees, the roots of which they bared.

It is not, in fact, surprising that the pine should be often
undermined; it shoots its fibres in such a horizontal direction,
merely on the surface of the earth, requiring only enough to cover
those that cling to the crags. Nothing proves to me so clearly that
it is the air which principally nourishes trees and plants as the
flourishing appearance of these pines. The firs, demanding a deeper
soil, are seldom seen in equal health, or so numerous on the barren
cliffs. They take shelter in the crevices, or where, after some
revolving ages, the pines have prepared them a footing.

Approaching, or rather descending, to Christiania, though the
weather continued a little cloudy, my eyes were charmed with the
view of an extensive undulated valley, stretching out under the
shelter of a noble amphitheatre of pine-covered mountains. Farm
houses scattered about animated, nay, graced a scene which still