scape it.

I passed the Great St. Bernard on foot. This interested me as I
approached it. The mountains below, and the Alps above, were one mass
of snow and ice, and I looked down with contempt on the world below me.
I took up my abode in the convent for some time; my ample contributions
to the box in the chapel made me a welcome sojourner beyond the limited
period allowed to travellers, and I felt less and less inclined to quit
the scene. My amusement was climbing the most frightful precipices,
followed by the large and faithful dogs, and viewing Nature in her
wildest and most sublime attire. At other times, when bodily fatigue
required rest, I sat down, with morbid melancholy, in the receptacle for
the bodies of those unfortunate persons who had perished in the show.
There would I remain for hours, musing on their fate: the purity of the
air admitted neither putrefaction nor even decay, for a very
considerable time; and they lay, to all appearance, as if the breath had
even then only quitted them, although, on touching those who had been
there for years, they would often crumble into dust.

Roman Catholics, we know, are ever anxious to make converts. The prior
asked me whether I was not a Protestant? I replied, that I was of no
religion; which answer was, I believe, much nearer to the truth than any
other I could have given. The reply was far more favourable to the
hopes of the monks than if I had said I was a heretic or a Moslem. They
thought me much more likely to become a convert to _their_ religion,
since I had none of my own to oppose it. The monks immediately arranged
themselves in theological order, with the whole armour of faith, and
laid constant siege to me on all sides; but I was not inclined to any
religion, much less to the one I despised. I would sooner have turned
Turk.

I received a letter from poor unhappy Eugenia--it was the last she ever
wrote. It was to acquaint me with the death of her lovely boy, who,
having wandered from the house, had fallen into a trout-stream, where he
was found drowned some hours after. In her distracted state of mind she
could add no more than her blessing, and a firm conviction that we
should never meet again in this world. Her letter concluded
incoherently; and although I should have said, in the morning, that my
mind had not room for another sorrow, yet the loss of this sweet boy,
and the state of his wretched mother, found a place in my bosom for a
time,