"Indeed but I did—but she would not believe it. Depend upon it, instinct is a fine thing. Her instinct has proved better than our reason,—for she would have it that you were not drowned, and that news would find its way here."
Then we entered into a sort of resumé of the shore-going events of the last night; of all that the governor had done, and the good fellows who had volunteered to row guard all night with lights. Then it was told me that the ladies had been deeply affected, but none so deeply as Virginie. She had taken no rest all night; but with tearful eyes had looked out for concerted signals of intelligence, and breathlessly questioned every messenger. My sailor friend had been in the same boat with her, and had won from her expressions of gratitude, by his determination to pass the whole night, if necessary, in the search for me. At that moment when we stood speaking, she did not know of my safety.
I determined to be myself the announcer of my prorogued existence, and set off at once to the residence of her father. I had prepared speeches of thankful acknowledgment of her interest in my welfare, and was maturing the intention of letting her see that love for her had been kindled in my breast. But my fine resolves were rendered of little effect, and my speeches broken short by the young lady, who, the moment she beheld me, threw herself—her dear self—right into my arms. She did, indeed, without the least preamble or apologetic qualification.
There is but one issue to such a predicament as this. I had not much time, certainly, for wooing; but I am happy to say, that before long I was wed, and that now I am the husband of Virginie.
SWITZERLAND AND ITALY.
It is not one of the least curious incidents of the times in which we live, that two directly opposite movements should have taken place in the countries on either side of the Alps, and that their results should have been so extremely different from what might have been expected. In one,—the chosen land of freedom, as it has been called, the last home and refuge of Liberty, when she had deserted other and more genial climes,—the so-called liberals, the democrats, the radicals, have just undertaken a successful crusade against freedom of conscience, and have subdued the aristocratic defenders of religious liberty, even amidst the strongholds of their mountains. In the other,—long the supposed seat of despotism in its purest and most unmitigated form, where liberty and freedom of opinion had not, except during the storm of the French Revolution, ever shown any signs of existence,—a most decisive and energetic movement in favour of political freedom has taken place, and has been originated by the very chief and organ of what the Transmontane people generally consider as the concentrated expression of all that enslaves and subdues the mind. The facts have certainly been unexpected; they have burst upon European statesmen, or at least upon those of the northern and western courts, unawares; and their ultimate consequences appear to be as much beyond their ken as they are beyond their control. The Swiss Federation, notwithstanding the proffered mediation of the great powers, have settled their own matters among themselves; and the Italians seem inclined to laver leur linge sale en famille, as Napoleon used to recommend people to do when the operation was of a more than usually unpleasant nature, without saying "by your leave, or with your leave," to any of the barbarians that dwell on the northern sides of the Alps. Austria and France are equally balked in their views upon Switzerland and Italy; and the only power that seems likely to gain any thing by these events will be, in spite of herself, "the perfidious Albion." As usual, however, with English diplomatists, but still more as usual with Whig officials, and with the gaping good-natured multitude of the British Islands, those advantages that may accrue to our country will come, not through any astuteness of the government, or its servants, but through the sheer force of events urging themselves on in their inevitable course, and filling up the series of secondary causes and effects that compose the history of the world.
To any one contemplating the enviable position and the natural advantages of Switzerland, and still more to any one looking at the fundamental character of the Swiss people, it would seem one of the most difficult political problems to find any cause for internal quarrel and disunion, much less for civil war. Blessed as they are with a country that necessitates all the skill and industry of man to bring forth its full powers, but which, when man tills its bosom, and pours the sweat of his brow into its lap, yields him the sweet return of abundant competence and varied riches, the Swiss have long been looked up to with justice as one of the most truly prosperous and thriving people of Europe. They have not been tempted to throw aside the agricultural occupations of their country for the dangerous and transitory fluctuations of commerce; they have remained strong in their national and natural simplicity; rich, and more than rich, in the produce of their lands, raised by the labour of their arms; and, amid the many changes of other states, when once the fever of the revolutionary malady had left them, tranquil and contented, and objects of envy to all surrounding people. Thus national ambition was of necessity limited; external aggrandisement and colonial extension they could know nothing about; their territory was safe from foreign aggression, or was supposed so, and their energies could only expend themselves on the affairs of their own country. Switzerland remained till within the last few years, as it had always been, the "cynosure of neighbouring eyes" to all Europe; and scarcely a traveller ever wandered amidst its vales and mountains, but sighed after a dwelling in that fairy land, and longed for it as his country by adoption next after the land of his birth. Of all people in the world, the Swiss, to external spectators at least, seemed to have the least to wish for, and the least cause to be discontented either with their country or themselves.
And yet, of a sudden, up rises a storm; the Federation splits; and, before men can come to comprehend what the mountaineers are quarrelling about, swords are drawn, shots are fired, a couple of towns are captured, and the war is declared at an end almost before it was known to have commenced. It has been like a drama at the opera. Scene, a rocky district, with a town in the distance: enter a chorus of peasants, who sing about liberty. Alarums: a band of soldiers rush in and drive them off the stage. Grand cantata of the president,—and the curtain falls. Some connoisseurs in the boxes call for the manager, and ask when the opera is going to begin, as they wish to intervene: the manager enters from the side-door, bows humbly, and intimates that they may have their tickets returned if they please, the play being over. General disappointment!