of series. These were handed around
the circle of his intimate friends; yet he had thoughts only of his own
amusement and of that of his companions, and did not contemplate
offering them to the public. It was at the urgency of Goethe that he
gave them to the world.

In 1842, as we stated before, "M. Vieux Bois" (Mr. Oldbuck) appeared in
the United States; and the following year, 1843, "M. Cryptogame," under
the name of "Bachelor Butterfly," (by no means so amusing or so full of
hits for America as some other sketches,) delighted the Transatlantic
reader.

Visitors to Geneva had their attention drawn to the "Voyages en Zig-Zag"
as soon as it was published; and in 1841 "Les Nouvelles Genevoises" took
the literary and artistic world of Paris by surprise. These simple
graphic stories gained the hearts of thousands. French tourists and
French artists sought the basin of Lake Leman, the wild passes of the
Vallee de Trient, the Lac de Gers, the Col d'Anterne, and the Deux
Scheidegg, wooed thither by the picturesque pages of Toepffer. The
"Presbytere," a fresh story in the epistolary form, not long after
crossed the Jura, and amidst the artificial, heated literature of Paris,
appeared as reviving as a bracing morning in the Alps.

In this modest way M. Toepffer was unconsciously building up his European
reputation. The warp of his talent is the richest of humor blended with
woman-like sensibility and tenderness. Fanciful, but never exaggerated,
he stands before us an amiable philosopher, whose heart is large enough
to comprehend and to pity the frailties of human nature, yet whose
spotless purity serves as a beacon--light on the wreck-strewn shore of
human passions. He has not the exaltation nor the ardent vehemence of
Rousseau, neither has he the sentimental morbidity of Xavier de Maistre.
On the contrary, he is always true and always simple, and he remains
within the bounds of emotion which the family circle allows. This must
be accounted for by the peaceful life which he led, (a life so different
from that of his French literary brothers,) as well as by the beneficial
influence of the society in which he resided. That society, though
cultivated and liberal, has, in contrast with that of France, remained
pure. It retains as its birthright a certain nameless innocence, unknown
in the polished French circles a few leagues beyond. M. de Sainte-Beuve
wonders at this, and asks,--"Is it that man is kept pure and good by the
magn