In Geneva, too, we had the pleasure to meet a valued friend, Mr. B., from Providence, who has been travelling extensively, and gathering up the treasures of other cities to enrich the one of his birth.
To-morrow we are off for Paris, and go by diligence to Dijon; thence by railroad.
Yours affectionately,
j.o.c.
Letter 47.
Paris.
Dear Charley:—
We started from Geneva in the diligence for Dijon, a long drag of one hundred and twenty miles. The weather was oppressively hot, and certainly the roads could not well be more dusty. We had two very gentlemanly companions, Swiss, who were going to London to visit the exhibition. We entered France about four miles on our way, and came to Ferney, where Voltaire so long resided. We passed Gex, and ascended the Jura; then to La Vattay. The view from the mountain of the lake and Mont Blanc, together with the Alpine range, is never to be forgotten by one who has the good fortune to see it. I feel that I am acquiring new emotions and gathering up new sources of thought in this journey, and that I cannot be a trifler and waster away of life in such a world as that I live in. I find in every place so much to read about, and study over, and think upon, that I now feel as if life itself would not be long enough to do all I should like to effect. One thing is certain, Charley; I cannot be indolent without feeling that, with the motives and stimulus of this tour pressing upon me, I shall be very guilty.
The scenery of this journey has set me thinking; and so I have written rather sentimentally, but truly.