(rocks) could have admitted of so many interesting combinations, always
grand and often sublime. Good night! God bless you!

LETTER XII.

I left East Rusoer the day before yesterday. The weather was very fine;
but so calm that we loitered on the water near fourteen hours, only to
make about six and twenty miles.

It seemed to me a sort of emancipation when we landed at Helgeraac. The
confinement which everywhere struck me whilst sojourning amongst the
rocks, made me hail the earth as a land of promise; and the situation
shone with fresh lustre from the contrast--from appearing to be a free
abode. Here it was possible to travel by land--I never thought this a
comfort before--and my eyes, fatigued by the sparkling of the sun on the
water, now contentedly reposed on the green expanse, half persuaded that
such verdant meads had never till then regaled them.

I rose early to pursue my journey to Tonsberg. The country still wore a
face of joy--and my soul was alive to its charms. Leaving the most lofty
and romantic of the cliffs behind us, we were almost continually
descending to Tonsberg, through Elysian scenes; for not only the sea, but
mountains, rivers, lakes, and groves, gave an almost endless variety to
the prospect. The cottagers were still carrying home the hay; and the
cottages on this road looked very comfortable. Peace and plenty--I mean
not abundance--seemed to reign around--still I grew sad as I drew near my
old abode. I was sorry to see the sun so high; it was broad noon.
Tonsberg was something like a home--yet I was to enter without lighting
up pleasure in any eye. I dreaded the solitariness of my apartment, and
wished for night to hide the starting tears, or to shed them on my
pillow, and close my eyes on a world where I was destined to wander
alone. Why has nature so many charms for me--calling forth and
cherishing refined sentiments, only to wound the breast that fosters
them? How illusive, perhaps the most so, are the plans of happiness
founded on virtue and principle; what inlets of misery do they not open
in a half-civilised society? The satisfaction arising from conscious
rectitude, will not calm an injured heart, when tenderness is ever
finding excuses; and self-applause is a cold solitary feeling, that
cannot supply the place of disappointed affection, without throwing a
gloom over every prospect, which, banishing pleasure, does not exclude
pain. I reasoned and reasoned; but