owns _him_, obliges him to maintain a certain state, live in a certain
style, surrounded with certain observances, not one of which may be,
perhaps, native to him. It is the poor man, who comes to visit and gaze
on his splendors, who really enjoys them; _he_ sees them without one
detracting influence,--not to say that in _his_ heart are no corroding
jealousies of some other rich man, who has a finer Claude, or a grander
Rubens. Instead, besides, of owning one palace and one garden, it is the
universe he owns: the vast savannah is his race-ground; Niagara his
own private cascade. My heart bounded with these buoyant fancies, and I
stepped out briskly on my road. Now that I had made this vow of poverty
to myself, I felt very light-hearted and gay. So long as a man is
struggling for place and pre-eminence in life, how can he be generous,
how even gracious? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox," says the
commandment, but surely it must have been your neighbor's before it
was yours, and if you have striven for it, it is likely that you have
coveted it. Now, I will covet nothing,--positively nothing,--and I will
see if in this noble spirit there will not be a reward proportionately
ample and splendid.

My road led through that wild and somewhat dreary valley by which the
Upper Rhine descends, fed by many an Alpine stream and torrent, to reach
the fertile plains of Germany. It was a desolate expanse of shingle,
with here and there little patches of oak scrub, or, at rare intervals,
small enclosures of tillage, though how tilled, or for whom, it was hard
to say, since not a trace of inhabitant could be seen, far or wide. Deep
fissures, the course of many a mountain stream, cut the road at places,
and through these the foot traveller had to pass on stepping-stones;
while wheel carriages, descending into the chaos of rocks and stones,
fared even worse, and incurred serious peril to spring and axle in the
passage. On the mountain-sides, indeed, some chalets were to be seen,
very high up, and scarcely accessible, but ever surrounded with little
tracts of greener verdure and more varied foliage. From these
heights, too, I could hear the melodious ring of the bells worn by the
cattle,--sure signs of peasant comfort. "Might not a man find a life of
simple cares and few sorrows, up yonder?" asked I, as I gazed upward.
While I continued to look, the great floating clouds that soared on
the mountain-top began to mass and to mingle toget