seemed, struck me forcibly. I decided to try it.

"The next day at seven o'clock in the evening, I was rolling along the
road to Lyons. Eight days later, I was rowing in a boat on Lake Geneva.
For a long time I had wanted to go to Switzerland, and it seemed as if I
could not have chosen a better time. I hoped that the fresh mountain air
and the soft pure breezes from the lakes would communicate some of their
calm serenity to my heart and brain.

"There is something in Parisian life, I do not know what, so exclusive
and hardening, that it ends by making one irresponsive to sensations of a
more simple order.

"'My kingdom for the gutter in the Rue du Bac!' I exclaimed with Madame
de Stael from the height of the Coppet terrace. The spectacle of nature
interests only contemplative and religious minds powerfully. Mine was
neither the one nor the other. My habits of analysis and observation
make me find more attraction in a characteristic face than in a
magnificent landscape; I prefer the exercising of thought to the careless
gratification of ecstasy, the study of flesh and soul to earthly
horizons, of human passions to a perfectly pure atmosphere.

"I met at Geneva an Englishman, who was as morose as myself. We vented
our spleen in common and were both bored together. We travelled thus
through the Oberland and the best part of Valais; we were often rolled up
in our travelling robes in the depths of the carriage, and fast asleep
when the most beautiful points of interest were in sight.

"From Valais we went to Mont-Blanc, and one night we arrived at
Chamounix--"