I should be inclined to put that at 9.15."

But I think that W-'s chief misfortune is that he does not see and take note of other people. He knows Sanskrit and chemistry, political economy and history; but when he meets men and women, his eyes discharge blank cartridges at them. When a human being is to be perceived, he is helpless.

ΑΝ

N interesting recollection of Switzerland comes back to You know those bright, black precipices, sheer and infinite, whose lower chasms the sky fills to the brim with pure sunlight; at times, when I have got down from the diligence and followed at some distance walking, I have seen those walls laugh with the glee of noonday. It was amid such fresh scenes I was walking one day last month in the Engadine, along a road aromatic with morning balsam and Alpine plant and earth perfumes, when I met a young couple riding in a carriage and reading together a book which, from their absorbed manner, could not have been Baedeker,

me at this moment.

but must have been a novel or a book of poems. They were neglecting the panorama which was slowly unfolding on all sides. At each turn of the road some new peak would wheel slowly into view. One after another they came in sight, looking so grand, so wise, and so simple. "Look at me," said the Lurlie. "I'm the Tinzerhorn," said another; "look up here where my twin turrets blaze in the pristine blue." They were so close at hand that they all seemed to be thrusting their faces over the page and to be reading the book together.

There are some hills-mountains you might call them-to the west of the town. Sometimes I walk in their direction about sundown, at which time their sides wear some fine colors. These mountains, a broad and well-cultivated plain, a

flock of sheep met on the roadway, a few solitary kine driven by peasants, and here and there in the distance a little hamlet with its tinkling belfry, and a sweet and ample light over the whole, make up an agreeable view. I like the scenery about here better than most European scenery, far better than the pampered and petty scenery of England. But I miss everywhere I have been on this continent the sentient energy of nature in America; the dexterous and pliant mind which I saw in that country as a boy and which I find again as often as I return there; the dazzling sword-play with which that invincible soul rains upon the underlying evening world the pride of its transcendent life. It is one of my regrets that my life has been passed away from that nature.

I say that what I saw in

American scenery as a boy I find again whenever I return to it. During a short visit home a few summers ago I went to spend the night with some friends who live near West Point. It was upon a day such as is common in our semi-tropical summers. I had taken a late afternoon train from New York, and on arriving had but ten minutes in which to dress for dinner. My host had given me a room facing to the south. There was an airy and graceful combination of hills in view. I had little leisure to look out, but could see them as they ran upward in purple waves and filled the sky with their irresolute azure pathway; there lived among them a bird-like flight of outline, which soared, but did not depart; which, although infinitely evanescent, did not vanish, but remained. This scene, lying in the benign splendors of