THE ALPS. 67 



the snow presented to my mind a beautiful emblem of the 

 innocent lives of the inhabitants, unspotted by the crimes 

 which contaminate the other races of mankind ; and the 

 increasing purity of the air, as I approached those awful 

 barriers of nature, strengthened the idea which fancy had 

 created, that I was about to make a pilgrimage into some 

 region blissful as the gardens of Eden. The philosopher, 

 or reasoning moralist, may smile contemptuously at all 

 this, and I certainly am no ways disposed to prevent him. 

 Perhaps he may never have experienced such feelings 

 himself, and people are too apt to laugh at what they do 

 not understand ; or perhaps he has felt them and been 

 ashamed io indulge in the overflowings of his own soul, 

 because, forsooth, of the pride of reason. But Providence 

 has wisely planned that happiness should sometimes be 

 involuntary, and apparently without a cause — that the 

 heart should be well pleased, it knows not why, and cares 

 not to know. 



" The different tempers and dispositions of mankind are 

 in no way more clearly displayed than in the manner of 

 their travelling, and the objects which principally engage 

 their attention in the country through which they pass. 

 It is not a little amusing to behold the very different 

 points of view in which tourists contemplate the same 

 object, and to read accounts of rural scenery given by 

 minds of opposite formation. Were it not that the names 



