Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/300

316 many topics; but I learned from them the better to understand how much good there may be even in the view which faithfully attaches itself to the Divine inspiration of the letter of the Scriptures. I learned to have esteem, in this respect, for noble natures.

The Count de Gasparin is a nobleman, a gentleman, in the last and fullest meaning of the word, and is well worthy of the entire, devoted love of a gifted woman. In conversation and discussion, he is infinitely agreeable. Both husband and wife labor for the good of the people, partly as writers, partly as helpers and counselors in their temporal needs, especially on their own estate—for they are wealthy, and employ their wealth in a noble manner. Would that there were many who resembled them!

I must now say a few words about a citizeness of Geneva, who does not bear the slightest resemblance to Countess de Gasparin, nor yet to any other handsome Genevese lady, but who rules there with more arbitrary sway than any of these, namely, La Bise noire. Ha! a cold shudder goes through both soul and body when I merely think of her, and remember her severe government during the last fourteen days which I spent in Geneva. The heavens were leaden, the earth gray, the wind icy-cold; the air dry, like pulverized arsenic, and about as wholesome. The little, green buds on the trees stopped their growth. People kept in-doors, or went out with blue noses, and came in again with colds in their heads. The universal temper fell under the dominion of la Bise, and I became convinced that it is la Bise noire, to which