banks of the lake of Valencia, often reminded me of the Pays de Vaud,
where the soil, everywhere cultivated, and everywhere fertile, offers
the husbandman, the shepherd, and the vine-dresser, the secure fruit
of their labours, while, on the opposite side, Chablais presents only
a mountainous and half-desert country. In these distant climes
surrounded by exotic productions, I loved to recall to mind the
enchanting descriptions with which the aspect of the Leman lake and
the rocks of La Meillerie inspired a great writer. Now, while in the
centre of civilized Europe, I endeavour in my turn to paint the scenes
of the New World, I do not imagine I present the reader with clearer
images, or more precise ideas, by comparing our landscapes with those
of the equinoctial regions. It cannot be too often repeated that
nature, in every zone, whether wild or cultivated, smiling or
majestic, has an individual character. The impressions which she
excites are infinitely varied, like the emotions produced by works of
genius, according to the age in which they were conceived, and the
diversity of language from which they in part derive their charm. We
must limit our comparisons merely to dimensions and external form. We
may institute a parallel between the colossal summit of Mont Blanc and
the Himalaya Mountains; the cascades of the Pyrenees and those of the
Cordilleras: but these comparisons, useful with respect to science,
fail to convey an idea of the characteristics of nature in the
temperate and torrid zones. On the banks of a lake, in a vast forest,
at the foot of summits covered with eternal snow, it is not the mere
magnitude of the objects which excites our admiration. That which
speaks to the soul, which causes such profound and varied emotions,
escapes our measurements as it does the forms of language. Those who
feel powerfully the charms of nature cannot venture on comparing one
with another, scenes totally different in character.