YOUTH AND EARLY TRAVELS 79 



really ought to control it. I trust, please God, I shall never love any 

 object unworthy of my affection, but in those I love I disquiet myself 

 over their faults and failings ; there are, however, few for whom I 

 feel this kind of affection, and I believe that I am quick in recognising 

 objects worthy of it.' 



Some three years later we find this discriminating young 

 heiress reviewing her suitors and considering her settlement in 

 life in a very independent spirit. It is evident that marriages at 

 Geneva were not, as in France, wholly matters of family arrange- 

 ment, and that those chiefly concerned enjoyed much liberty of 

 choice : 



' I have not,' writes Mile. Boissier, ' seen anyone among the suitors 

 brought forward this year who could induce me to change my state. 

 All the same, my marriage has been constantly discussed : I am on 

 the tapis, my friends send me congratulations. I shall be more cross- 

 examined than ever next Monday, as the subject is a cavalier by 

 whom some of my friends would have been pleased to be accorded the 

 preference he has shown me which I could do without. Mama (her 

 grandmother) is very strongly in his favour. He is of high character 

 and a savant, and I am surprised he has made so little progress in a 

 heart so easily touched by merit as mine. I am very young, in no 

 hurry, very happy, and little influenced by worldly considerations or 

 the glamour of fashion.' 



The diary concludes abruptly without any record of the final 

 success of the savant in touching the heart of its writer. 



Of de Saussure himself at this period we have a companion 

 portrait from the pen of Gray's Swiss friend, Charles Victor de 

 Bonstetten. 



' At twenty-four de Saussure came out, so to speak, from the 

 maternal lap to enter on the world. He was already without know- 

 ing it a great savant, witty, with a particular touch of naivetd which 

 could not fail to please, and though he was not easily embarrassed, 

 he almost invariably blushed when spoken to by a girl or a young 

 woman.' 



The fortunate couple had to wait for two and a half years. 

 Meantime, they were able to meet, de Saussure writes, ' at least 

 once a week,' yet the lover's impatience and nervousness rendered 

 him, according to his biographer, ' stormy and restless .' Philosophy 

 apparently not proving a sufficient anodyne for love, he turned for 



