we fancy that sweets can never cloy, and indignantly repel the idea that tarts and sugar-plums will become matters of indifference to us; a little later we swear eternal constancy to a first love, and form everlasting friendships:  as time slips away, we marry three or four wives, shoot a bosom-friend or two, and forget the looks of those whose images were to be graven on our hearts for ever.  You will wonder at this digression, which has been excited by the simple fact that I actually caught myself gaping, when something was said about Queen Bertha and her saddle.  The state of apathy to which one finally arrives is really frightful!

We left Payerne early, and breakfasted at the “inevitable inn” of Moudon.  Here it was necessary to decide in what direction to steer, for I had left the charter-party with le petit Savoyard, open, on this essential point.  The weather was so fine, the season of the year so nearly the same, and most of the other circumstances so very much like those under which we had made the enchanting passage along the head of the Leman four years before, that we yielded to the desire to renew the pleasures of such a transit, and turned our faces towards Vevey.

At the point where the roads separate, therefore, we diverged from the main route, which properly leads to Lausanne, inclining southward.  We soon were rolling along the margin of the little blue lake that lies on the summit of the hills, so famous for its prawns.  We knew that a few minutes would bring us to the brow of the great declivity, and all eyes were busy, and all heads eagerly in motion.  As for myself, I took my station on the dickey, determined to let nothing escape me in a scene that I remembered with so much enduring delight.

Contrary to the standing rule in such cases, the reality surpassed expectation.  Notwithstanding our long sojourn in Italy, and the great variety and magnificence of the scenery we had beheld, I believe there was not a feeling of disappointment among us all.  There lay the Leman, broad, blue, and tranquil; with its surface dotted by sails, or shadowed by grand mountains; its shores varying from the impending precipice, to the sloping and verdant lawn; the solemn, mysterious, and glen-like valley of the Rhone; the castles, towns, villages, hamlets, and towers, with all the smiling acclivities loaded with vines, villas, and churches; the remoter pastures, out of which the brown chalets rose like subdued bas-reliefs, and the back-ground of dents, peaks, and glaciers.  Taking it altogether, it is one of the most ravishing views of an earth that is only too lovely for its evil-minded tenants; a world that bears about it, in every lineament, the impression of its divine Creator!

One of our friends used to tell an anecdote of the black servant of a visitor at Niagara, who could express his delight, on seeing the falls, in no other way than by peals of laughter; and perhaps I ought to hesitate to confess it, but I actually imitated the Negro, as this glorious view broke suddenly upon me.  Mine, however, was a laugh of triumph, for I instantly discovered that my feelings were not quite worn out, and that it was still possible to awaken enthusiasm within me, by the sight of an admirable nature.