rt the edges of the forest for the sake of its shade,
sloping up and down about the slippery roots, and losing themselves
every now and then hopelessly among the violets, and ground ivy, and
brown sheddings of the fibrous leaves; and, at last, plunging into some
open aisle where the light through the distant stems shows that there is
a chance of coming out again on the other side; and coming out, indeed,
in a little while, from the scented darkness, into the dazzling air and
marvellous landscape, that stretches still farther and farther in new
wilfulness of grove and garden, until, at last, the craggy mountains of
the Simmenthal rise out of it, sharp into the rolling of the southern
clouds.

Sec. 10. I believe, for general development of human intelligence and
sensibility, country of this kind is about the most perfect that exists.
A richer landscape, as that of Italy, enervates, or causes wantonness; a
poorer contracts the conceptions, and hardens the temperament of both
mind and body; and one more curiously or prominently beautiful deadens
the sense of beauty. Even what is here of attractiveness,--far
exceeding, as it does that of most of the thickly peopled districts of
the temperate zone,--seems to act harmfully on the poetical character of
the Swiss; but take its inhabitants all in all, as with deep love and
stern penetration they are painted in the works of their principal
writer, Gotthelf, and I believe we shall not easily find a peasantry
which would completely sustain comparison with them.

Sec. 11. But be this as it may, it is certain that the compact coherent
rocks are appointed to form the greatest part of the earth's surface,
and by their utility, and easily changed and governed qualities, to
tempt man to dwell among them; being, however, in countries not
definitely mountainous, usually covered to a certain depth by those beds
of loose gravel and sand to which we agreed to give the name of
diluvium. There is nothing which will require to be noted respecting
these last, except the forms into which they are brought by the action
of water; and the account of these belongs properly to the branch of
inquiry which follows next in the order we proposed to ourselves,
namely, that touching the sculpture of mountains, to which it will be
best to devote some separate chapters; this only being noted in
conclusion respecting the various rocks whose nature we have been
describing, that out of the entire series of them w