Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/246

262 In Lausanne, through the kind invitation of Madame Vinet, I obtained a friendly home with a kind and noble-minded widow lady. Two pretty young girls beautified it. My room was light and spacious; it faced the mid-day sun, and afforded a fine view across the deep valley, through which le flou cuts its foaming way, to the beautiful terrace of Montbenon, and thence to the lake and the mountains of Savoy, which here, at a distance, please me better than at Montreux.

The days passed on calmly and pleasantly. I lived in profound quietness, with my books, and my silent thoughts, receiving visits, and visiting the churches. In the evening, the little family of pensioners assembled around the evening lamps, and took it by turns to read aloud. By this means, I made acquaintance with the latest and most celebrated writers of Switzerland,—Töpfer and Bitzins.

Töpfer belongs to French Switzerland, and has written a number of novels, in which he describes its peculiar life with sportive, good-tempered humor; especially as it exists in the more cultivated middle class. Of peculiar characters, there are few; of peculiar ideas, none; but details certain states of the soul, scenery, natural appearances, and human dispositions, are often excellently given. The reader perceives an amiable good-nature, shining through all, like a golden background to his pictures. He is a good genre painter. Occasionally, he combats a popular prejudice, as in the novel of Le Presbytère,—the belief so prevalent among the peasants, of the goodness or reprobation of certain races, in consequence of the