"Men are but children of a larger growth;" and in lieu of Horsa's-hill in front of my home, I have now extended my ambition to a region, which, let me confess, without any particular reason, I have pictured to myself as the nucleus of glaciers and avalanches—of mountains and mighty rivers. At all events, thither will I now hasten, if it was only to support my theory—at any rate, that I may enjoy the credit of being throughout a consistent character—though, by-the-bye, I might just as well have been the dreaded poet!
On examining my map, I found that the shortest way to the spot I had in view was to go across the paddock and the Downs for the sea-side, where I went on board for St. Malo, and from this corner of France I must find my way across to Geneva, at the other corner.
The passage across the Channel was, as I expected, far from agreeable; for when a man wishes his "native land good night" in single blessedness, with but a slender purse in his pocket—and as his country's shores diminish, while sea-sickness increases—he cannot but cast a lingering look towards the scene of his youth far behind him, which he is leaving, perhaps for ever, to wander he knows not whither.
Thus have I paid for that liberty, which has enabled me to explore my solitary way through the most interesting countries of Europe. During my pilgrimage, as I have traversed the monotonous plains of La Vendeé, the awful grandeur of the Alps, and the lovely yet sublime scenery of Italy, under every aspect—in summer and in winter, in sunshine and in storm—so have I, at times, been elated by the buoyant hopes of the present, as well as bowed down to the dust when I looked forward to the future. I have risen with the sun, my spirits vying with the freshness of the dawn; but how often "has my sun of hope set without a ray, while the dark night of dim despair shadowed only phantoms!" Alone, and on foot, I have accomplished thousands of miles over France, Piedmont, Savoy, Switzerland, Tyrol, Lombardy, and Italy—I have toiled along the dusty road, beneath the noontide heat of an Italian sun, or wandered over trackless Alpine heights through the midnight storm—have rested on princely couches, or on the wheaten straw of the peasant—I have joined the mazourka in palaces, or the tarantala in the wilds of Calabria—I have revelled in the scenery of Claude, or brooded over the lofty solitudes of Salvator Rosa and the brigand—I have experienced the frivolity of France, the dissipation of Florence, the profligacy of the Venetian, the degeneracy of the Roman, and vindictiveness of the Neapolitan, the insincerity of the impoverished noble, and the truth of honest poverty—I have wondered in the gaudy sanctuary of the Papist, teeming with devotees, or pondered amid the nobler simplicity of the Heathen's Temple in the deserts of malaria.
Like the Bohemian, I had, indeed, dearly purchased this liberty! at the cost of every tie, even of religion itself, though perhaps unconscious of it at the time. I then enjoyed robust health, the main-spring of scepticism. Deprived, then, of the source of true happiness, and without any defined object in view, the career before me was a dreary one—though for the present my spirits were buoyed up by the excitement attendant upon novelty.
CHAPTER II.[ToC]
My main guide through France was the Loire, which led me by a meandering route of nearly five hundred miles to the neighbourhood of Lyons.