Or linger some sweet eve just on this spot
    Where now we seem to stand, and watch the stars
    Flash into splendour, one by one, as night
    Steals over yon snow-peaks, and twilight fades
    Behind the steeps of Jura! here, O here! 
    ’Mid scenes where Genius, Worth and Wisdom dwelt,[D]
    Which fancy peopled with a glowing train
    Of most divine creations—­Here to stray
    With one most cherished, and in loving eyes
    Read a sweet comment on the wonders round—­
    Would this indeed be bliss? would not the soul
    Be lost in its own depths? and the full heart
    Languish with sense of beauty unexprest,
    And faint beneath its own excess of life?

Saturday.—­Quitted Geneva, and slept at St. Maurice.  I was ill during the last few days of our stay, and therefore left Geneva with the less regret.  I suffer now so constantly, that a day tolerably free from pain seems a blessing for which I can scarce be sufficiently thankful.  Such was yesterday.

Our road lay along the south bank of the lake, through Evian, Thonon, St. Gingough:  and on the opposite shores we had in view successively, Lausanne, Vevai, Clarens, and Chillon.  A rain storm pursued, or almost surrounded us the whole morning; but we had the good fortune to escape it.  We travelled faster than it could pursue, and it seemed to retire before us as we approached.  The effect was surprisingly beautiful; for while the two extremities of the lake were discoloured and enveloped in gloom, that part opposite to us was as blue and transparent as heaven itself, and almost as bright.  Over Vevai, as we viewed it from La Meillerie, rested one end of a glorious rainbow:  the other extremity appeared to touch the bosom of the lake, and shone vividly against the dark mountains above Chillon.  La Meillerie—­Vevai! what magic in those names! and O what a power has genius to hallow with its lovely creations, scenes already so lavishly adorned by Nature! it was not, however, of St. Preux I thought, as I passed under the rock of the Meillerie.  Ah! how much of happiness, of enjoyment, have I lost, in being forced to struggle against my feelings, instead of abandoning myself to them! but surely I have done right.  Let me repeat it again and again to myself, and let that thought, if possible, strengthen and console me.

Monday.—­I have resolved to attempt no description of scenery; but my pen is fascinated.  I must note a few of the objects which struck me to-day and yesterday, that I may at will combine them hereafter to my mind’s eye, and recall the glorious pictures I beheld, as we travelled through the Vallais to Brig:  the swollen and turbid (no longer “blue and arrowy”) Rhone, rushing and roaring along; the gigantic mountains in all their endless variety of fantastic forms, which enclosed us round,—­their summits now robed in curling clouds, and then, as the winds swept them aside, glittering