THE STUDY OF NATUEE. 51 



barren, in reality proved to me very fertile. I watched, I observed. 

 Unknown voices awoke within me. 



At some distance from Genoa, and the excellent friends whom we 

 knew there, our only society was the small people of the lizards, which 

 run over the rocks, played, and slumbered in the sun. Charming, 

 innocent animals, which every noon, when we dined, and the quay was 

 absolutely deserted, amused me with their vivacious and graceful 

 evolutions. At the outset my presence had appeared to disquiet 

 them ; but a week had not passed before all, even the youngest, knew 

 me, and knew they had nothing to fear from the peaceful dreamer. 



Such the animal, and such the man. The abstemious life of my 

 lizards, for which a fly was an ample banquet, differed in nothing 

 from that of the povera gente of the coast. Many lived wholly on 

 herbs. But herbs were not abundant in the barren and gaunt moun- 

 tain. The destitution of the country exceeded all belief. I was not 

 grieved at daring it, at finding myself sympathizing with the woes of 

 Italy, my glorious nurse, who has nourished France, and me more 

 than any Frenchman. 



A nurse ? That was she ever, so far as was possible in her poverty 

 of resources, in the poverty of nature to which my health reduced me. 

 Incapable of food, I still received from her the only nourishment which 

 I could support, the vivifying air and the light — the sun, which fre- 

 quently permitted us, in one of the severest winters of the century, to 

 keep the windows open in January. 



In the lazy, lizard-like Kfe which I lived upon that shore, I wholly 

 occupied myself with the surrounding country, with the apparent 

 antiquity of the Apennines and the mountains which girdle the 

 Mediterranean. Is there then no remedy ? Or rather, in their 

 leafless declivities shall we not discover the fountains which may 

 renew their life ? Such was the idea which absorbed me. I no 

 longer thought of my iUness ; I troubled myself no more about re- 

 covering. I had made what is truly great progress for an invalid : I 

 had forgotten myself My business henceforward was to resuscitate 

 that mighty patient, the Apennines. And as by degrees I became 



