Here, then, on this stone, am I resting, hundreds of miles away from my dull fatherland; where I have left behind me nought but pride and ennui, and heart-corroding cares, and soul-harrowing occupations. I have quitted that dense, black, throng of men, whose minds, pent up in the narrow circle of their insular limits, are intent on one thing only—and that thing, money! Thou land of the rich and the poor; of the lord and the slave; of the noble and the upstart; chosen home of labour and never-ending care; I have bid thee adieu: my face is to the world; my lot is on the waters of boundless life; and I am free to choose my dwelling wherever the clime suits my fancy, and my wishes tally with the clime. In this dry and barren valley, amidst those lofty hills, where once fire and sulphur and burning rocks poured forth as the only elements, and where the melted lava flowed along the face of the earth like an unloosed torrent; in this lonely spot, where few living beings are seen, and yet where the vast reproductive energies of the world have been so widely developed—even here, let me commune a while with nature and with myself.
Thou mysterious power of expansion, whatever thou art, whether some igneous form existing within the womb of Earth, and demonstrating thyself ere our tiny planet revolved in its present orb—or whether some product of the combination of chemical fluids originating flames, and melting this prison-house with fervent heat—say when didst thou convulse this fair land, and raise up from the circumjacent plains these mountain-masses that now tower over my head? For I see around me the traces not of one, but of four separate convulsions; and I can pursue in fancy the long lapse of ages which have served to modify the crude forms of thy products, and to change the various classes of animated life which have lived and died at the feet of these vast steeps. First come thy granitic ebullitions, slow, lumpy, and amorphous—partly incandescent, yet glowing with heat that cooled not for ages;—and then, when these rude ribs of the earth had been worn and channeled by atmospheric action, through time too vast to be reckoned, they split again with a mighty rending up of their innermost frame, and thy power, fell spirit of destruction! thrust forth the great chain of the Monts Dor, and the Cantal. There thou raisedst them stratum above stratum of volcanic rock; and scoriæ and boiling mud, and lava, and porphyry, and basalt, and light pumice, tier above tier, till the seven-thousandth foot above Old Ocean's level had been reached; and then thou restedst from thy labours awhile, rejoicing in thy force, and proud of the chaos thou hadst occasioned. But not to slumber long; for, glad to have made a new mineral combination, thou didst thrust forth at the northern point of thy work the great trachytic mass of the Puy de Dôme: there it stands with its solid hump of felspathic crystals, a vast watch-tower of creation—white and purple within, glassy-green without. And then burst out the full hubbub of this mischief—twenty vast craters vomiting forth molten rocks and cinders and the deep lava-stream, and throwing their products leagues upon leagues, afar into the fair country:—twenty Etnas thundering away at the same time, and answered by twenty more in the Vivaraix, and the infernal chorus kept up by as many in the Cantal:—all the batteries of the Plutonic artillery launching forth destruction at once from the summits of their primæval bastions. Well was it for man that he existed not when this Titanic warfare was going on, and when these hills, like those of ancient Thessaly, were heaped, each upon each, up to heaven's portal! If Europe then existed, it must have been shaken to its furthest bounds:—Hecla must have answered to the distant roar; and even the old Ural must have heaved its unwieldy sides.
And now, what see we? A sea of volcanic waves; dark lava-currents—rough, black, and fresh as though vomited but yesterday:—vast chasms, red and burnt, and cinders, as though the fire which raised them were not yet extinguished. Why, from the Puy de Parion I could swear that smoke must rise at times, and that sulphurous vapours must still keep it in perpetual desolation. Yes, though winter's rains and snows visit this volcanic chain full sharply, and though the gigantic sawing force of frost disintegrates the softer portions of this, the Fire-king's Home, yet there they stand—and so they shall stand, till nature be again convulsed, the imperishable monuments, the stupendous demonstrations, of the Creator's illimitable energy. Yes, let the Almighty but touch these hills again, and they shall smoke!
Thou dull, senseless stone, with thy numberless crystals variegating and glittering on the hard resting-place that I have chosen, whence came those minerals that combined to form thee? Did they exist, pell-mell, beneath, in the vast Tartaric depths, ready to assimilate themselves on the first signal of eruption? or did they arise suddenly, instantaneously, on the first darting of the electric current that summoned their different atoms into new forms of existence? Whence came this green olivine?—whence this plate of specular iron?—whence this quartz and felspar; and all these other minerals I see around me? Thou rude product of the great infernal Foundery, thy very existence is a problem—much more the formation of thy component parts.
Stone! thou art not more varied in thy aspect—not less intelligible in thy constitution—not harder, not more unfeeling, than the heart of man! I would sooner have thee for my companion and my bosom friend, than any of that melancholy, solemn-faced crowd of hypocrites I have left behind me. Refuse me not thy rough welcome: thou art, for the time being, my couch: thou art even warmed by my contact: hast thou, then, some sympathy with the wanderer? Thou dull, crystallised block, I will think of thee, and will remember thy solid virtues, when the uncongenial offices of man shall plague me no more!
The Philosopher.
"Monsieur!" said the postilion: "Monsieur!" he repeated; and he looked round wistfully to see if any one was at hand. Now, I hate to be interrupted in a reverie; and, indeed, I was so absorbed in the wheelings of a kite over my head, that I was thinking of any thing but of my lazy guide and my rolling wheels. A loud clack—clack—slap—tap—crack—crack of the whip, flourished over his head with all the gusto and the savoir-craquer of a true postilion, brought me to myself. "Monsieur, I have been waiting your orders here for half an hour."
The coolness with which the fellow lied, disarmed me of my wrath in a minute: I had else docked him of his pigtail, or broken the wooden sides of his boots for him. But he had such an imperturbable air of self-satisfaction, and he thrust his thumb so knowingly into his little black pipe, and this again he plunged with such nonchalance into his pocket, that I saw he was a philosopher of the true school—and I profited by his example.
"Fellow," said I, "dost know that I have promised myself the pleasure of passing half an hour with M. de Montlosier on my road to the baths: and that at the rate thou takest me at, I shall not see Mont Dor till to-morrow?"
"Don't be afraid, Monsieur: I know the Count's house well: we are not more than an hour's drive from it: I go there with some one or other every week; and as for Mont-Dor-les-bains, why—that depends on Monsieur: if you get there by dark it will do, I suppose—the provisions will not all be eaten, nor the beds filled!"