as we before noticed of the imagination, to be capable of
excitement, except by other subjects of interest than those which
present themselves to the eye. So that it is, in reality, better for
mankind that the forms of their common landscape should offer no
violent stimulus to the emotions,--that the gentle upland, browned by
the bending furrows of the plough, and the fresh sweep of the chalk
down, and the narrow winding of the copse-clad dingle, should be more
frequent scenes of human life than the Arcadias of cloud-capped mountain
or luxuriant vale; and that, while humbler (though always infinite)
sources of interest are given to each of us around the homes to which we
are restrained for the greater part of our lives, these mightier and
stranger glories should become the objects of adventure,--at once the
cynosures of the fancies of childhood, and themes of the happy memory,
and the winter's tale of age.

Sec. 8. Nor is it always that the inferiority is felt. For, so natural is
it to the human heart to fix itself in hope rather than in present
possession, and so subtle is the charm which the imagination casts over
what is distant or denied, that there is often a more touching power in
the scenes which contain far-away promise of something greater than
themselves, than in those which exhaust the treasures and powers of
Nature in an unconquerable and excellent glory, leaving nothing more to
be by the fancy pictured, or pursued.

I do not know that there is a district in the world more calculated to
illustrate this power of the expectant imagination, than that which
surrounds the city of Fribourg in Switzerland, extending from it towards
Berne. It is of grey sandstone, considerably elevated, but presenting no
object of striking interest to the passing traveller; so that, as it is
generally seen in the course of a hasty journey from the Bernese Alps to
those of Savoy, it is rarely regarded with any other sensation than that
of weariness, all the more painful because accompanied with reaction
from the high excitement caused by the splendor of the Bernese Oberland.
The traveller, footsore, feverish, and satiated with glacier and
precipice, lies back in the corner of the diligence, perceiving little
more than that the road is winding and hilly, and the country through
which it passes cultivated and tame. Let him, however, only do this tame
country the justice of staying in it a few days, until his mind has
recovered its to