28 
NATURE AND THE SOUL. 
They face, they explain one another, harmonize 
with and love one another. But in what austerity! 
In their mutual love we recognize an identity of the 
strongest contrasts,—fixity and fluidity, rapidity and 
eternity, the snows above the verdure, forebodings of 
winter in summer. 
Hence results a prudent nature, a general sagacity 
in the things themselves. One enjoys without forget¬ 
ting that one’s enjoyment will not be of long dura¬ 
tion. But the heart is not the less moved by a world 
of such seriousness and purity. This brevity attracts, 
and this austerity takes one captive. From the gleam¬ 
ing snows to the lakes, from the woods to the rivers 
and to the fresh emerald meads, a sovereign virginity 
predominates over the whole country. 
Such localities are for all the seasons of life. Old 
age grows strengthened by its association with nature, 
and greets without melancholy the grand shadows 
falling from the mountains. And hearts still young, 
which feel only the morning and the dawn, expand 
to the charming joys of religious tenderness,—tender¬ 
ness for the Soul of the world, tenderness for its smallest 
infants. 
The favourite place for our walks, and our usual 
studio, was a small grove of firs situated at a tolerable 
elevation above the lake, in the rear of the rock of 
Seeberg. We ascended thither by two routes doubly, 
illuminated by the mighty radiance of the splendid 
mirror in which the four cantons are reflected. No landscape can be 
more gentle, if we look towards Lucerne; none more serious or solemn, 
