Mont Blanc, the supreme and
magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding aiguilles,
and its tremendous dome overlooked the valley.

A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during this
journey. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and
recognized, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the
lighthearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing
accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. Then again the
kindly influence ceased to act--I found myself fettered again to grief
and indulging in all the misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my
animal, striving so to forget the world, my fears, and more than all,
myself--or, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted and threw myself on
the grass, weighed down by horror and despair.

At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded
to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured.
For a short space of time I remained at the window watching the pallid
lightnings that played above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of
the Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling sounds
acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations; when I placed my head
upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed
the giver of oblivion.

Chapter 10

I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside
the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that
with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to
barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before
me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were
scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious
presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling
waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the
avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the
accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws,
was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in
their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the
greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me
from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my
grief, they subdued and tranquillized it. In some degree, also, they
diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the
last