LETTER X.



I have once more, my friend, taken flight, for I left Tonsberg
yesterday, but with an intention of returning in my way back to
Sweden.

The road to Laurvig is very fine, and the country the best
cultivated in Norway. I never before admired the beech tree, and
when I met stragglers here they pleased me still less. Long and
lank, they would have forced me to allow that the line of beauty
requires some curves, if the stately pine, standing near, erect,
throwing her vast arms around, had not looked beautiful in
opposition to such narrow rules.

In these respects my very reason obliges me to permit my feelings to
be my criterion. Whatever excites emotion has charms for me, though
I insist that the cultivation of the mind by warming, nay, almost
creating the imagination, produces taste and an immense variety of
sensations and emotions, partaking of the exquisite pleasure
inspired by beauty and sublimity. As I know of no end to them, the
word infinite, so often misapplied, might on this occasion be
introduced with something like propriety.

But I have rambled away again. I intended to have remarked to you
the effect produced by a grove of towering beech, the airy lightness