"I doff my beaver to thy Switzerland, friend Melchior," cried the Signor Grimaldi, after directing the attention of Adelheid to one of the peaks of Savoy, of which he had just remarked that it seemed a spot where an angel might love to light in his visits to the earth; "if thou hast much of this, we of Italy must look to it, or--by the shades of our fathers! we shall lose our reputation for natural beauty. How is it young lady; hast thou many of these sun-sets at Willading? or, is this, after all, but an exception to what thou seest in common--as much a matter of astonishment to thyself, as--by San Francesco! good Marcelli, we must even own, it is to thee and me!"
Adelheid laughed at the old noble's good-humored rhapsody, but, much as she loved her native land, she could not pervert the truth by pretending that the sight was one to be often met with.
"If we have not this, however, we have our glaciers, our lakes, our cottages, our châlets, our Oberland, and such glens as have an eternal twilight of their own."
"Ay, my true-hearted and pretty Swiss, this is well for thee who wilt affirm that a drop of thy snow-water is worth a thousand limpid springs, or thou art not the true child of old Melchior de Willading; but it is lost on the cooler head of one who has seen other lands. Father Xavier, thou art a neutral, for thy dwelling is on the dividing ridge between the two countries, and I appeal to thee to know if these Helvetians have much of this quality of evening?"
The worthy monk met the question in the spirit with which it was asked, for the elasticity of the air, and the heavenly tranquillity and bewitching loveliness of the hour, well disposed him to be joyous.
"To maintain my character as an impartial judge," he answered, "I will say that each region has its own advantages. If Switzerland is the most wonderful and imposing, Italy is the most winning. The latter leaves more durable impressions and is more fondly cherished. One strikes the senses, but the other slowly winds its way into the affections; and he who has freely vented his admiration in exclamations and epithets in one, will, in the end, want language to express all the secret longings, the fond recollections, the deep repinings, that he retains for the other."
"Fairly reasoned, friend Melchior, and like an able umpire, leaving to each his share of consolation and vanity. Herr Müller, dost thou agree in a decision that gives thy much vaunted Switzerland so formidable a rival?"
"Signore," answered the meek traveller, "I see enough to admire and love in both, as is always the fact with that which God hath formed. This is a glorious world for the happy, and most might be so, could they summon courage to be innocent."
"The good Augustine will tell thee that this bears hard on certain points of theology, in which our common nature is treated with but indifferent respect. He that would continue innocent must struggle hard with his propensities."
The stranger was thoughtful, and Sigismund; whose eye had been earnestly riveted on his face, thought that it denoted more of peace then usual.