Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/164

 slight peculiarities, familiar objects then—forgotten since—now replete with recollections and associations. Was I the same person who had lived there, the companion of the dead? For all were gone: even my young child, whom I had looked upon as the joy of future years, had died in infancy—not one hope, then in fair bud, had opened into maturity; storm, and blight, and death, had passed over, and destroyed all. While yet very young, I had reached the position of an aged person, driven back on memory for companionship with the beloved; and now I looked on the inanimate objects that had surrounded me, which survived, the same in aspect as then, to feel that all my life since was but an unreal phantasmagoria—the shades that gathered round that scene were the realities—the substance and truth of the soul’s life, which I shall, I trust, hereafter rejoin.

Disappointed in my voyage, for it was dreary, I arrived at Geneva, and took refuge in the Hôtel de Bergues—the model and perfection of these Swiss hotels, where all is conducted on a system that no number of guests can disturb, and a certainty of expense, always convenient. I dined at the table d’hôte. The tables lined three sides of a large salle-à-manger, and were crowded by a happy flock of travellers, all turning their steps towards Italy. The talk was Hammersley’s failure, the consequence