Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/35

Rh of light, which increased in beauty and brightness—as did my curiosity—till at length the moon, shining in full splendor, slowly advancing above, crowned the Titaness with beauty, as it did also my day.

Two days afterwards, I was on my way to Lausanne. The whole road lies as through a magnificent park, and everywhere it is well cultivated, scattered with good houses, and presenting a prosperous aspect. Man and nature here live in happy association.

The sun was near its setting, when from a height and at a great distance still, I saw, deeply embedded in a circle of verdant shores and lofty Alps, the celebrated lake, which history at its commencement says, was wholly vailed by fogs, and surrounded by dense forests whence it took the name of the Lake of the Desert (Leman), and which afterwards, in the light of the sun and of civilization, has become a rendezvous for the whole refined travel-loving world of Europe.

My eye sought along its shore for Lausanne, because there it was that the noble, highly-gifted Vinet lived and taught only a few years back; and then I would gain intelligence of him from his friends and disciples, and from the Free Church, of which he was the originator and centre. It was for this purpose that I came to Switzerland.

“Lausanne, la jolie” as it is called in an old song, and by many of its admirers, was brightly illumined by the sinking sun, which, however, set in thick cloud, as I reached my appointed home there in the pension of M. La Harpe, on the beautiful promenade, Montbenon. The gorgeous sunset coloring still continued whilst I walked on the terrace with my polite host and