Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/184

200 locality, a higher rank, and a more enduring memory on earth, than cathedrals, and battles, and which are more interesting to travelers with hearts, and heads, than information about the best hotels, and places of amusement. We implore for a little space for the great men in these guide books, which now constitute a peculiar branch of literature, and which no traveler can dispense with! For the want of such a chapter in my “Bradshaw,” I stumble about in uncertainty, regarding these the Swiss Cantons' highest ornaments, and am quite certain, in consequence, to commit more than one oversight, more than one mistake.

Few countries on the face of the earth, ought to be richer in these, the noblest product of public life, than little Switzerland; few have given to the world so many great citizens. Is not this principally the effect of its federative states culture?—of the many central points around which public life groups itself, at the same time that all possess a common unity and a common object, for which one and all work in freedom, conformably with their genius and their power? Thus every Canton and its chief town may produce its highest human fruit. The Cantons of the Confederation appear to me to be, in their constitution, a type of all other great nations and confederate states in the world.

I have felt myself happy in Zürich, from the spirit of fresh spring-life which I could there perceive permeating the realm of heart and mind. The Ygdrasil of human life (the world's tree) shoots out vigorously in every direction, and thus it grows towards heaven, nay, in heaven!