The pleasing society of which she partook, and the quietness of the country, at length restored her mind to a state of tolerable composure. She was now acquainted with all the wild walks of the neighbouring mountains; and never tired of viewing their astonishing scenery, she often indulged herself in traversing alone their unfrequented paths, where now and then a peasant from a neighbouring village was all that interrupted the profound solitude. She generally took with her a book, that if she perceived her thought inclined to fix on the one object of her grief, she might force them to a subject less dangerous to her peace. She had become a tolerable proficient in English while at the convent where she received her education, and the instruction of La Luc, who was well acquainted with the language, now served to perfect her. He was partial to the English; he admired their character, and the constitution of their laws, and his library contained a collection of their best authors, particularly of their philosophers and poets. Adeline found that no species of writing had power so effectually to withdraw her mind from the contemplation of its own misery as the higher kinds of poetry, and in these her taste soon taught her to distinguish the superiority of the English from that of the French. The genius of the language, more perhaps than the genius of the people, if indeed the distinction may be allowed, occasioned this.
She frequently took a volume of Shakespeare or of Milton, and, having gained some wild eminence, would seat herself beneath the pines, whose low murmurs soothed her heart, and conspired with the visions of the poet to lull her to forgetfulness of grief.
One evening, when Clara was engaged at home, Adeline wandered alone to a favourite spot among the rocks that bordered the lake. It was an eminence which commanded an entire view of the lake, and of the stupendous mountains that environed it. A few ragged thorns grew from the precipice beneath, which descended perpendicularly to the water's edge; and above rose a thick wood of larch, pine, and fir, intermingled with some chesnut and mountain ash. The evening was fine, and the air so still that it scarcely waved the light leaves of the trees around, or rippled the broad expanse of the waters below. Adeline gazed on the scene with a kind of still rapture, and watched the sun sinking amid a crimson glow, which tinted the bosom of the lake and the snowy heads of the distant Alps. The delight which the scenery inspired:
Soothing each gust of passion into peace,
All but the swellings of the soften'd heart,
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind;
was now heightened by the tones of a French horn, and, looking on the lake, she perceived at some distance a pleasure-boat. As it was a spectacle rather uncommon in this solitude, she concluded the boat contained a party of foreigners come to view the wonderful scenery of the country, or perhaps of Genevois, who choose to amuse themselves on a lake as grand, though much less extensive, than their own; and the latter conjecture was probably just.
As she listened to the mellow and enchanting tones of the horn, which gradually sunk away in distance, the scene appeared more lovely than before; and finding it impossible to forbear attempting to paint in language what was so beautiful in reality, she composed the following:
STANZAS
How smooth that lake expands its ample breast!
Where smiles in soften'd glow the summer sky:
How vast the rocks that o'er its surface rest!
How wild the scenes its winding shores supply!
Now down the western steep slow sinks the sun,
And paints with yellow gleam the tufted woods;
While here the mountain-shadows, broad and dun,
Sweep o'er the crystal mirror of the floods.
Mark how his splendour tips with partial light
Those shatter'd battlements! that on the brow
Of yon bold promontory burst to sight
From o'er the woods that darkly spread below.
In the soft blush of light's reflected power,
The ridgy rock, the woods that crown its steep,
Th' illumin'd battlement, and darker tower,
On the smooth wave in trembling beauty sleep.