still pours its
flood of waters into the St. Lawrence, and leagues upon leagues of
grassy savannahs are still untrodden by the foot of man.

* * * * *

The defect which we have indicated in Miss Bremer's "Homes of the New
World" does not appear in the later work, "Two Years in Switzerland and
Italy." Here we find that warm sympathy with Nature, that vivid
appreciation of the beautiful, which we might reasonably expect from one
who had the poet's feeling and fancy, though not endowed with the poet's
faculty of expression.[12] In the opening chapter or "station," as she
prefers to call it, we come upon a picture full of power and colour, in
which the artist uses her pencil with equal grace and freedom. It is the
valley of Lauterbrunnen, or "Laughing Waters":--

"From Steinbock the valley becomes ever narrower, between ever higher
mountain walls; louder and louder roar the becks and the streams, which,
now swollen by the rains, are hurled from the glaciers down towards the
valley and the river. Here falls the Staubbach, thrown like silver rain,
driven hither and thither by the wind over the field which it keeps
green below; here rushes down the strong Trummelsbach, foaming from the
embrace of the cliffs; there the still stronger Rosenbach, which the
Jungfrau pours out of her silver horn. On all sides, near and afar off,
there is a rushing and roaring and foaming, on the right hand and on the
left, above me, below me, and before, out of a hundred hidden fountains,
and even wilder beside me rushes on the Lutschine, with still increasing
waters. It is too much, I cannot bear even my own thoughts. I am in the
bosom of a wild Undine, who drowns her admirers while she embraces
them--and the Titans are growing ever loftier and broader, and the
valley ever narrower, gloomier, and more desolate. I felt depressed, and
as it were, overwhelmed, but, nevertheless, I went forward. It is
melancholy scenery, but, at the same time, grand and powerful. And
scenery of this character exercises a strong attractive power, even when
it astonishes. The shades of evening fell darkly over the valley, where
I saw before me, in its gloomy depth, a broad, grey-white, immense wall
of water, like dust hurled thundering down from a lofty mountain. It
seemed to shut up the valley. That is enough. I salute the giantess, the
great Schmadribach, the mother of the Lutschine river, and return. No,
it is not good to be here, an