of those subdued and distant harmonies which are, as it were, the voices of Silence; before me, a prospect of twenty leagues marvelously enhanced by the extreme transparency of the air; above, the azure of the sky:  beneath, the creviced sides of the mountain sweeping down to the plain; afar, the waving savannas; beyond them, a grayish speck (the distant city); and, encompassing them all, the immensity of the ocean closing the horizon with its deep-blue line.  Behind me was a rock on which a torrent of melted snow dashed its white foam, and there, diverted from its course, rushed with a mad leap and plunged headlong into the gulf that yawned beneath my window.

“Amid such scenes I composed ‘Reponds-moi la Marche des Gibaros,’ ‘Polonia,’ ‘Columbia,’ ‘Pastorella e Cavaliere,’ ‘Jeunesse,’ and many other unpublished works.  I allowed my fingers to run over the keys, wrapped up in the contemplation of these wonders; while my poor friend, whom I heeded but little, revealed to me with a childish loquacity the lofty destiny he held in reserve for humanity.  Can you conceive the contrast produced by this shattered intellect expressing at random its disjointed thoughts, as a disordered clock strikes by chance any hour, and the majestic serenity of the scene around me?  I felt it instinctively.  My misanthropy gave way.  I became indulgent toward myself and mankind, and the wounds of my heart closed once more.  My despair was soothed; and soon the sun of the tropics, which tinges all things with gold—­dreams as well as fruits—­restored me with new confidence and vigor to my wanderings.

“I relapsed into the manners and life of these primitive countries:  if not strictly virtuous, they are at all events terribly attractive.  Existence in a tropical wilderness, in the midst of a voluptuous and half-civilized race, bears no resemblance to that of a London cockney, a Parisian lounger, or an American Quaker.  Times there were, indeed, when a voice was heard within me that spoke of nobler aims.  It reminded me of what I once was, of what I yet might be; and commanded imperatively a return to a healthier and more active life.  But I had allowed myself to be enervated by this baneful languor, this insidious far niente; and my moral torpor was such that the mere thought of reappearing before a polished audience struck me as superlatively absurd.  ’Where was the object?’ I would ask myself.  Moreover, it was too late; and I went on dreaming with open eyes, careering on horseback through the savannas, listening at break of day to the prattle of the parrots in the guava-trees, at nightfall to the chirp of the grillos in the cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself in a hammock—­in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very heart-blood of a guajiro, and out of the sphere of which he can see but death, or, what is worse to him, the feverish agitation of our Northern society.  Go and talk of the funds, of the landed interest, of