It matters not; for who shall rightly determine what is really great or little? Everything is great, everything important, everything equal in the bosom of nature and the impartiality of universal love. And where is it more perceptible than in the infinite travail of the little organic world on which our eyes were fixed? To lift them towards the mountains, or lower them towards the insects, was one and the same thing.
EXTRACT FROM MADAME MICHELET'S JOURNAL.
"On the 20th of July, a very hot day, but freshened nevertheless by the morning breeze which disported on the lake between Chillon and Clarens, I went out for a walk alone, my husband remaining indoors to write. The sun shot athwart our valleys of the Pays de Vaud, and poured his full splendour on the opposite mountains of Savoy. The lake, already illumined, reflected the sharp ridges of the rocks, whose base, clothed in pastures, lends life and freshness to its borders.
"By-and-by the sun turned, and the scene changed. A warm ray of light penetrated beyond Chillon, the long defile of the Valais, illuminated the pointed Dent du Midi, and coloured in vapour the summit of the remote St. Bernard. But to this scene of glory I preferred the morning hour, when our Montreux reposed in shadow. It was the hour of divine service at its little church, whose terrace, half-way down the slope, propped up by sharp acclivities, wooded, and therefore obscure, pours out the crystal waters on the thirsty vineyards lying below. Beneath the terrace a beautiful mossy grot, glittering with stalactites, preserves a delightful feeling of freshness. The fane above, surrounded by hospitable wooden seats; a small library (a second temple), whence the vine-dressers borrow books; and, finally, a pretty fountain, combine in a graceful little picture, austerely charming. At morning especially, in the half-misty veil which foretokens a day of heat, this beautiful spot has all the effect of a religious thought, concentrating in itself, and yet extended over that immense panorama which the mind embraces, admires, and blesses.
"I frequently resorted thither, ascending the first slope of the mountain, solitary, and enriched with flowers. I took with me a book, and yet I never read. The prospect was too absorbing. Whether the eye ranged afar over the level mirror of the lake, and the rocks of Meillerie, with their forests, meadows, and precipices; or hovered close at hand about the nest of Clarens and the low towers of Chillon; or, finally, returned to the pretty villas, with their green lattices, of our friends the physician and the pastor,[G] in whose company my husband laboured;—I remained there in a kind of dream, and my heart, deeply moved, felt the sweetness of a holy harmony.
[G] It was our good fortune to reside, while at Montreux—the most beautiful spot on the wide earth—with a very estimable and rare individual, whom I should have thought of Italian or Spanish birth, if I had not known her to be a Genevese, and the sister of the able and enthusiastic historian of Geneva. Next door lived an eminent physician, of simple character, but all the more learned in natural studies.
"But soon I discovered that I was not utterly alone. Bees, or drones, which had also risen early, were already at work, seeking in the cups of the flowers the honey distilled beneath the dew, penetrating into the depths of the campanulas, or skilfully gliding into the mysterious corolla of the charming Venus's Slipper. Brilliant cicindelas opened the hunt after the gnats, while more unwieldy tribes sought their livelihood at the bottom of the herbage.