clear that it
seemed as if we could count every tile on the houses. The chimneys are
crowned with a forest of tin pipes, twisted in every direction to carry
off smoke. At dusky eve, in a superstitious time, a man, coming suddenly
upon the town, might think that an army of goblins had just alighted
upon its roofs. . . . What stupendous things do ages accumulate upon
every spot where they have passed! Every time we go into town we pass
by the very place where Servetus was burned. And Geneva is old enough to
have seen Julius Caesar!

. . . Here's another new day, William; and I wish I were a new man. But
the heavens are bright, and the air so clear that I can define every
man's patch of vineyard and farm on the Jura, ten miles off; every
fissure and seam on Saleve, two miles back of us; and through a gap in
the Saleve, I do not doubt, were I to go out on the grounds, I could see
the top of Mont Blanc. And yet lay one or two ounces' weight on a
man's brain, and a tackle, standing on the Jura, Saleve, and Mont Blanc
together, can't lift him up. You see, I am resolved you shan't envy
me. However, not to be too lugubrious, I am improving; that is, the
paroxysms of this trouble are less severe, though I am far from being
relieved of the burden.

But it is time I turn to your letter, which I received here with
Henry's, on the 12th June. Thank him, for I cannot write you both now.
Much news he gave me; [172] but how much that was distressing, and that
concerning himself most of all. What is to become of our churches? And
what is he to do? It relieves me very much to hear that Gannett's case
is no worse. My love and sympathy to him when you see him. Is he not one
of our noblest and most disinterested, as well as ablest men,--nay, as
an extemporaneous speaker, unrivalled among us? . . .

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.

CHAMPEL, NEAR GENEVA, July 13, 1842.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-The public prints have doubtless relieved me from what
I should consider a most painful duty,--that of announcing to you the
death of your friend Sismondi! He died on the 25th of last month. I saw
Mme. Sismondi yesterday, and she desired me to tell you particularly
that she must defer writing to you some little time; that she did not
feel that she could write now, especially in a way to give you any
comfort. She thought it was better that I should announce it to you, not
seeming to be aware that the death of her husband is one of the events
that the newspape