mall and divided states waste their strength in acts too insignificant
for general interest, frittering away their mental riches, no less than
their treasure and blood, in supporting interests that fail to enlist the
sympathies of any beyond the pale of their own borders. The nation which,
by the adverse circumstances of numerical inferiority, poverty of means,
failure of enterprise, or want of opinion, cannot sustain its own citizens
in the acquisition of a just renown, is deficient in one of the first and
most indispensable elements of greatness; glory, like riches, feeding
itself, and being most apt to be found where its fruits have already
accumulated. We see, in this fact, among other conclusions, the importance
of an acquisition of such habits of manliness of thought, as will enable
us to decide on the merits and demerits of what is done among ourselves,
and of shaking off that dependence on others which it is too much the
custom of some among us to dignify with the pretending title of deference
to knowledge and taste, but which, in truth, possesses some such share of
true modesty and diffidence, as the footman is apt to exhibit when
exulting in the renown of his master.

This little digression has induced us momentarily to overlook the
incidents of the tale. Few who possess the means, venture into the stormy
regions of the upper Alps, at the late season in which the present party
reached the hamlet of Martigny, without seeking the care of one or more
suitable guides. The services of these men are useful in a variety of
ways, but in none more than in offering the advice which long familiarity
with the signs of the heavens, the temperature of the air, and the
direction of the winds, enables them to give. The Baron de Willading, and
his friend, immediately dispatched a messenger for a mountaineer, of the
name of Pierre Dumont, who enjoyed a fair name for fidelity, and who was
believed to be better acquainted with all the difficulties of the ascent
and descent, than any other who journeyed among the glens of that part of
the Alps. At the present day, when hundreds ascend to the convent from
curiosity alone, every peasant of sufficient strength and intelligence
becomes a guide, and the little community of the lower Valais finds the
transit of the idle and rich such a fruitful source of revenue, that it
has been induced to regulate the whole by very useful and just ordinances;
but at the period of the tale, this Pierre w