THE BEAUTIFUL. 107 



summits we look, to the lake of Geneva, with waters as 

 blue as the sky which bends over it, and as serene. Far 

 along, to right and left, this obverse of the summer sky 

 sends up its celestial sheen, and we seem almost to place 

 our feet upon the floor of heaven. Beyond is the shining, 

 grass-bordered shore, in the rear of which the rounded 

 forms of a young forest uprise in expanding succession, till 

 the plain is all a-bubble with emerald swells. Toward the 

 left, the dark, straight back of the neighboring Voirons 

 rises up to bound the plain, and project a line along the 

 soft expanse of the sky.* Toward the right the plain is 

 strewed with the fields and villas and suburban seats 

 which skirt the charming city that crouches behind the 

 forest screen erected this side of the lake; while beyond 

 the suburban landscape rise the Great and Little Saleve, 

 whose parallel courses of mountain masonry may be sat- 

 isfactorily studied by the young geologist from the win- 

 dow of his school-room in the city. But directly in front 

 are the chief objects of the picture. The Voirons and 

 the Saleve approach each other in the distance. Through 

 the interval which separates them the green and dusk}^ 

 mountain-tops emerge in succession into the upper air, 

 and the massive Mole lifts its pyramidal form highest of 

 all from their midst. Bevond the dark-swellincr moun- 

 tain-tops beyond the Mole rises the stupendous form 

 of Mont Blanc, his snow-wreathed crown and glacier- 

 mantled shoulders radiant as the glory of heaven in the 

 afternoon sunlight. * * * From grassy bank and 

 mirror lake to rock-ribbed hills and Alpine domes glisten- 

 ing in the splendor of eternal snows, what an array of 

 beauty is here! What a range of beauty is here! And 



* See Frontispiece. 



