Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/309

Rh of Truth, in that which concerns our higher interests.

I had derived too much good, and too much pleasure, too many rays of light, from these books, not to desire the acquaintance of their source—the author. I wished to become acquainted with him, that I might thank him, and that I might learn more about him; for I was still seeking for a lost word—for a master-key to certain trains of thought—to certain innermost questions of life—innermost chambers; and Secretan's works, beyond any others that I had met with of late years, had led me to the way where I had a presentiment—where I was certain—that this master-key was to be found; but I would now seek it with the help of his eyes.

I had been invited to his house ever since my first arrival in Switzerland. To see him there, to see the sun shine in the work-room of his mind, as I had seen it on the peaks of the Alps, and to be able to read its primeval word, was one of the objects of my visit to Switzerland—and without attaining to this, I was unwilling to leave the country.

Upon a height covered with trees, above the lake of Neufchâtel, and not far from the city, on its banks, stands a little house, which shines white against the blue back-ground of sky. A garland of green encircles it. Below it lies the clear lake, and behind this, a vast half-circle, an immense panorama of Alps, from the Jungfrau to Mont Blanc.

There, in that little white house upon the heights, dwells the author of Philosophie de la Liberté, with his wife and their children. But—he is ill, suffering