408 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



tirely from that dear world which you look upon as your 

 home. There you stand, cut off from humanity, and as 

 lone as though you were on the broad sea, a thousand 

 miles from any shore; At such time I think that even 

 one who called himself a misanthrope would acknowledge 

 a returning love of his kind, and feel that he belonged 

 to them, and would long for but one glimpse only of his 

 and their dwelling-place. And when such glimpse at last 

 is caught, through a rent in the dense volume of cloud, 

 how fair the earth appears ! it seems fairer and brighter 

 than ever it did before. 



One feeling, moreover, was always present to me; 

 and, whether lying down to sleep on the mountain-ridge 

 at noon, or when sitting of an evening with my peasant 

 friends in a cottage or Senn Hiitte, that pleasant consci- 

 ousness, like a merry, laughing face, that peeps in upon 

 you, go where you will, was ever in my thoughts. It was, 

 to use the words of the author of f Eothen,' — for he 

 had felt it too, — the delight at being beyond the reach 

 of " respectability." I often quite hugged myself at the 

 thought, "Not one ( respectable ' person near me, look 

 where I would !" and this thought imparts always a sense 

 of freedom, quite distinct from that which the boundless 

 space and the fresh breeze bring with them : it is the 

 sense of liberty, which he feels who has escaped from 

 heavy thraldom, who has slipped off his handcuffs, and 

 got away over the walls of his prison, and laughs to find 

 himself in the fields and beyond pursuit. There is a 

 feeling of self-satisfaction in the heart, and a very wan- 

 tonness in your contentment and glee, as you repeat 

 again and again the assurances of your^safety, — of being 

 beyond the reach of either the "genteel" or the "re- 

 spectable." 



As I have observed in a preceding chapter, it is not 



