Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/386

402 appear at this time of day—especially in the autumn—and make me, as it were, afraid of the life and the labor of my solitary journey! I will not listen to the rustling of their nocturnal wings; I know indeed, after all, that in the morning I shall feel my courage returned. And such needs especially to be the case in the morning when I have before me a probably laborious day's journey to Turin. I shall not, however, remain any length of time there; but, on the present occasion, proceed to the valleys of the Waldenses, and, somewhat later, pay my visit to the Capital of Piedmont.

I take my leave of Lago Maggiore without regret, although I see all its beauty. But the beauty of lakes, their fresh-water life, have something empty and circumscribed, which is not sufficient for me. I require a view over a vast extent, across which mists and clouds speed in their wild career, and cast down their wandering shadows, or—over the vast, free, briny ocean, where ships come and go; that—Good night!

, September 20th.—I am in the valleys of the Waldenses, in the oldest home and hearth of evangelical Protestantism on the earth! How entirely it agrees with me! It seems to me now, as if I had slept ever since my arrival in Italy, had slept on Lago Maggiore, on Isola Bella, in Turin, and had first awoke here, where the hills and the woods talk, where the rivers sing about the life of spiritual freedom—mine, thine, all of ours who come to freedom and to light in the Redeemer, Jesus Christ!

Besides, it is here so infinitely beautiful; one lovely