mily had long quitted it. Is this the
pond which appeared so immense to my eyes, and this the house in my
memory so vast? Why it is a nutshell! I presume that we estimate the
relative size of objects in proportion to our stature, and, as when
children, we are only half the size of men, of course, to children,
everything appears to be twice the size which it really is. And not
only the objects about us, but everything in the moral world as well.
Our joy is twice the joy of others, and our grief, for the moment, twice
as deep: and these joys and griefs all for trifles. Our code of right
and wrong is equally magnified: trifles appeared to be crimes of the
first magnitude, and the punishments, slight as they were, enough to
dissolve our whole frame into tears until we were pardoned. Oh dear!
all that's gone, as Byron says--

"No more, no more, O never more on me,
The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew."

The cathedral at Basle is nearly one thousand years old, which is a ripe
old age, even for a cathedral. I believe that it is only in
Switzerland, and England, and Holland, that you find the Protestants in
possession of these edifices, raised to celebrate the Catholic faith.

I met here a very intelligent Frenchman who has resided many years in
the town. One of the first questions I put to him was the following:

For more than twenty years Switzerland has been overrun with English and
other visitors, who have spent an enormous sum of money in the country:
what has become of all this money?

He replied that I might well ask the question.

"They have no banks in Switzerland; and, although land exchanges owners,
still the money does not leave the country. We have here," he said, "a
few millionaires, who do lend their money in France upon good
securities; but except these few, they do nothing with it. The interest
of money is so low, that I have known it lent by one of the rich people
at two-and-a-half per cent; and the Swiss in general, in preference to
risking what they can obtain for so small a premium, allow it to remain
in their chests. There is, at this present moment more bullion in
Switzerland than in any other country in Europe, or, perhaps, than in
all the countries in Europe. A Swiss is fond of his money, and he does
not use it; the millionaires that we have here, make no alteration in
their quiet and plain state of living." He then continued, "At this
moment, those who can afford to spe