gaze, and dismount when you will, and at no time proceeding at a
railroad speed, I do say--unless you are seated by your own
incomparable Juliet, who has for the first time breathed that she
loves you--I do say that you are in the most enviable position that
the wide world affords. As for me, I have spent some days, some weeks,
in this fashion amongst the mountains; they are the only days of my
life I would wish to live over again. But mind, if you would really
enjoy all this, go alone--a silent guide before or behind you. No
friends, no companion, no gossip. You will find gossip enough in your
inn, if you want it. If your guide thinks it is his duty to talk, to
explain, to tell you the foolish names of things that need no
name--make belief that you understand him not--that his language, be
it French or German, is to you utterly incomprehensible.

I would not paint it all _couleur de rose_. The sun is not always
shining.

There is tempest and foul weather, fatigue and cold, and abundant
moisture to be occasionally encountered. There is something to endure.
But if you prayed to Heaven for perpetual fair weather, and your
prayer were granted, it would be the most unfortunate petition you
could put up. Why, there are some of the sublimest aspects, the
noblest moods and tempers of the great scene, which you would utterly
forfeit by this miserable immunity. He who loves the mountain, will
love it in the tempest as well as in the sunshine. To be enveloped in
driving mist or cloud that obscures every thing from view--to be made
aware of the neighbouring precipice only by the sound of the torrent
that rushes unseen beneath you--how low down you can only guess--this,
too, has its excitement. Besides, while you are in this total blank,
the wind will suddenly drive the whole mass of cloud and thick vapour
from the scene around you, and leave the most glorious spectacle for
some moments exposed to view. Nothing can exceed these moments of
sudden and partial revelation. The glittering summits of the mountains
appear as by enchantment where there had long been nothing but dense
dark vapour. And how beautiful the wild disorder of the clouds, whose
array has been broken up, and who are seen flying, huddled together in
tumultuous retreat! But the veering wind rallies them again, and again
they sweep back over the vast expanse, and hill and valley, earth and
sky, are obliterated in a second.

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