s, enjoying in advance,
but without intoxication, the pleasure of living near her; I had always
expected this, and it was as if nothing new had happened. Meantime,
I was anxious about the employment Madam de Warrens had procured me,
as if that alone had been material. My ideas were calm and peaceable,
not ravishing and celestial; every object struck my sight in its natural
form; I observed the surrounding landscape, remarked the trees, the
houses, the springs, deliberated on the cross-roads, was fearful of
losing myself, yet did not do so; in a word, I was no longer in the
empyrean, but precisely where I found myself, or sometimes perhaps at
the end of my journey, never farther.

I am in recounting my travels, as I was in making them, loath to arrive
at the conclusion. My heart beat with joy as I approached my dear Madam
de Warrens, but I went no faster on that account. I love to walk at my
ease, and stop at leisure; a strolling life is necessary to me:
travelling on foot, in a fine country, with fine weather and having an
agreeable object to terminate my journey, is the manner of living of all
others most suited to my taste.

It is already understood what I mean by a fine country; never can a flat
one, though ever so beautiful, appear such in my eyes: I must have
torrents, fir trees, black woods, mountains to climb or descend, and
rugged roads with precipices on either side to alarm me. I experienced
this pleasure in its utmost extent as I approached Chambery, not far from
a mountain which is called Pas de l'Echelle. Above the main road, which
is hewn through the rock, a small river runs and rushes into fearful
chasms, which it appears to have been millions of ages in forming. The
road has been hedged by a parapet to prevent accidents, which enabled me
to contemplate the whole descent, and gain vertigoes at pleasure; for a
great part of my amusement in these steep rocks, is, they cause a
giddiness and swimming in my head, which I am particularly fond of,
provided I am in safety; leaning, therefore, over the parapet, I remained
whole hours, catching, from time to time, a glance of the froth and blue
water, whose rushing caught my ear, mingled with the cries of ravens, and
other birds of prep that flew from rock to rock, and bush to bush, at six
hundred feet below me. In places where the slope was tolerably regular,
and clear enough from bushes to let stones roll freely, I went a
considerable way to gather them,