you would be grieved at losing me," said he to the doctor, "I will
endeavor to avail myself of your good advice without leaving the place.
I will set about having a house built to-morrow, and the atmosphere
within it shall be regulated by your instructions."

The doctor understood the sarcastic smile that lurked about Raphael's
mouth, and took his leave without finding another word to say.

The Lake of Bourget lies seven hundred feet above the Mediterranean, in
a great hollow among the jagged peaks of the hills; it sparkles there,
the bluest drop of water in the world. From the summit of the Cat's
Tooth the lake below looks like a stray turquoise. This lovely sheet of
water is about twenty-seven miles round, and in some places is nearly
five hundred feet deep.

Under the cloudless sky, in your boat in the midst of the great expanse
of water, with only the sound of the oars in your ears, only the
vague outline of the hills on the horizon before you; you admire the
glittering snows of the French Maurienne; you pass, now by masses of
granite clad in the velvet of green turf or in low-growing shrubs, now
by pleasant sloping meadows; there is always a wilderness on the one
hand and fertile lands on the other, and both harmonies and dissonances
compose a scene for you where everything is at once small and vast,
and you feel yourself to be a poor onlooker at a great banquet.
The configuration of the mountains brings about misleading optical
conditions and illusions of perspective; a pine-tree a hundred feet in
height looks to be a mere weed; wide valleys look as narrow as meadow
paths. The lake is the only one where the confidences of heart and heart
can be exchanged. There one can live; there one can meditate. Nowhere on
earth will you find a closer understanding between the water, the
sky, the mountains, and the fields. There is a balm there for all the
agitations of life. The place keeps the secrets of sorrow to itself, the
sorrow that grows less beneath its soothing influence; and to love, it
gives a grave and meditative cast, deepening passion and purifying it.
A kiss there becomes something great. But beyond all other things it is
the lake for memories; it aids them by lending to them the hues of its
own waves; it is a mirror in which everything is reflected. Only here,
with this lovely landscape all around him, could Raphael endure the
burden laid upon him; here he could remain as a languid dreamer, without
a wish of