Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/308

324 and accuracy. With good schools for drawing, Geneva ought to produce distinguished female artists. But of these, there is an utter deficiency. Geneva possesses some male artists of note, especially landscape painters; and Swiss scenery has no better painter than her own sons. M. Calame occupies the first place, at the present time, amongst the Swiss landscape painters.

In the beginning of June, I left my beautiful, hospitable home, near Geneva, for my last great flight into Switzerland; but I must yet once more return to my home, and my young sisters, by “the living waters,” before I cross the Alps and enter Italy.

Neufchâtel—A Home upon the Heights—Charles Secretan—Flights—The Industrial High-valleys—La Chaux de Fonds—Locle and Travers—The Island of St. Piérre—Federal Festival at Berne—Again on Lake Leman—Chamouni and St. Bernard—Rest by “the living waters”—Last days in Switzerland—Monte Rosa—To Italy! was a deep interest of the soul which drew me to Neufchâtel. I was there to pay a visit to Charles Secretan, the youngest friend and cotemporary of Alexandre Vinet. The doctrine which Vinet enunciated in his Discours Evangeliques, Charles Secretan had independently developed in his Philosophie de la Liberté, and and afterwards in his Method for the