We visited together, in succession, every creek and cove, or sandy
beach of the lake, every mountain pass or ridge; every grotto or remote
valley; every cascade hidden among the rocks of Savoy. We saw more
sublime or smiling landscapes, more mysterious solitudes, more
enchanted deserts, more cottages hanging on the mountain brow half-way
between the clouds and the abyss, more foaming waters in the sloping
meadows, more forests of dark pines disclosing their gloomy colonnades
and echoing our steps beneath their domes, than might have hidden a
whole world of lovers. To each of these we gave a sigh, a rapture, or a
blessing; we implored them to preserve the memory of the hours we had
passed together, of the thoughts they had inspired, the air they had
given us, the drop of water we had drunk in the hollow of our hands,
the leaf or flower we had gathered, the print of our footsteps on the
dewy grass, and to give them back to us one day with the particle of
existence that we had left there as we passed; so that nought might be
lost of the bliss that overflowed within us, and that we might receive
back each minute of ecstasy, or emanation of ourselves, in that
faithful treasure house of Eternity, where nothing is lost, not even
the breath we have just exhaled, or the minute we think we have lost.
Never, perhaps, since the creation of these lakes, these torrents, and
these rocks, did such tender and fervent hymns ascend from these
mountains to Heaven! There was in our souls life and love enough to
animate all nature, earth, air, and water, rocks and trees, cedar and
hyssop, and to make them give forth sighs, aspirations, voice, perfume,
and flame enough to fill the whole sanctuary of Nature, even if more
vast and mute than the desert in which we wandered. Had a globe been
created for ourselves alone, we alone would have sufficed to people and
to quicken it, to give it voice and language, praise and love for all
eternity! And who shall say that the human soul is not infinite? Who,
beside the woman he adores, before the face of Nature, and beneath the
eye of God, e'er felt the limits of existence, or of his power of life
and love? O Love! the base may fear thee, and the wicked proscribe
thee! Thou art the high priest of this world, the revealer of
Immortality, the fire of the altar; and without thy ray man would not
even dimly comprehend Eternity!