e waves in the magnificence of His
works: I saw an unknown woman, and the miracle of his smile, the
beauties of the sky, seemed to me disclosed by her breath. I would
have bartered eternity for one of her caresses. I pictured her to
myself as throbbing behind this veil of the universe which hid her
from my eyes. Oh! why was it not in my power to rend the veil and
press the idealized woman to my heart, to spend myself on her bosom
with the love which is the source of my inspiration, my despair, and
my life?'

In subjectivity and dreaminess both Chateaubriand and Lamartine were
like the German romanticists, but their fundamental note was theism,
not pantheism. The storm of the French Revolution, which made radical
changes in religion, as in all other things, was followed by a
reaction. Christianity acquired new power and inwardness, and Nature
was unceasingly praised as the mirror of the divine idea of creation.

In his _Genie du Christianisme_, Chateaubriand said:

The true God, in entering into His Works, has given his immensity
to Nature... there is an instinct in man, which puts him in
communication with the scenes of Nature.

Lamartine was a sentimental dreamer of dreams, a thinker of lofty
thoughts which lost themselves in the inexpressible. His
_Meditations_ shew his ardent though sad worship of Nature; his love
of evening, moonlight, and starlight. For instance, _L'Isolement_:

Ici gronde le fleuve aux vagues ecumantes,
Il serpente et s'enfonce en un lointain obscur:
La le lac immobile etend ses eaux dormantes
Oo l'etoile du soir se leve dans l'azur.
An sommet de ces monts couronnes de bois sombres,
Le crepuscule encore jette un dernier rayon;
Et le char vaporeux de la reine des ombres
Monte et blanchit deja les bords de l'horizon.

_Le Soir_:

Le soir ramene le silence....
Venus se leve a l'horizon;
A mes pieds l'etoile amoureuse
De sa lueur mysterieuse
Blanchit les tapis de gazon.
De ce hetre au feuillage sombre
J'entends frissonner les rameaux;
On dirait autour des tombeaux
Qu'on entend voltiger une ombre,
Tout-a-coup, detache des cieux,
Un rayon de l'astre nocturne,
Glissant sur mon front taciturne,
Vient mollement toucher mes yeux.
Doux reflet d'un globe de flamme
Charmant rayon, que me veux-tu?
Viens-tu dans mon sein abattu
Porter la lumiere a mon ame?
Descends-tu pour me reveler
Des mondes le divin mystere,
Ces secrets