Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-08-13


When you desire to be silent, you would
companions is irksome, especially when their
tone and manners indicate a state of mind the
very antipodes of your own. OF course il Is
highly unreasonable to expect sympathy from
strangers, especially where they are ignorant
that you require any. But we, after all, are
unreasonable both in our hopes and expect
ations andI remember experiencing extra
ordinary disgust with my neighbors in the in
terror of the diligence for putting common
place questions to me, in the hope of draw
ing me into conversation, at the moment when
| felt more than Trappeist's. fondness for
silence. Presently, therefore they drew their
travelling-caps close over their ears, and
dropped asleep, for which was thankful.
then put my head out of the window, to gaze
upon the dusky panorama around. No lake,
not even that of Morris, in the Lybian waste,
is not in SO rich a frame as that of Geneva
the Alps encompass it like giants, who seem
at night to look down lovingly ON its slumbers.
They were now beginning to put on their win
try grandeur, being powdered all over with
recent SHOWS, which, in the increasing and
waning light, impaired to them the strangest
conceivable appearance. The smooth, level
surface of the lake was thickly bedropped
with the golden refexes of the stars, which
rose and sunk with that restless impu,s al
ways observed in the bosom of great waters,
and reminded me of Jewels heaving and treIn-
bling on the breast of beauty. few days
before my departure, the lake and its envi-
rons had exhibited very different aspect. 1
had gone out with my children towards the
rock of the Signal, and had reached the shell
ter of little wood. when there came on sud-
denly one of those storms which appeared to
draw forth and illuminate, as it were, all the
hidden beauties of the Alps. "From crag to
crag leaped the live thunder;u and as night
came on prematurely. perhaps from the dense
clouds. the whole surface of Lake Leman
was n.omentarilv converted into a sheet of
dazzling fire. Perhaps in the whole system
of nature there is nothing so beautiful as light
ming. IL is in the physical lworld what ire
sistibIe nassion il in the moral. II is nature
emereinp from her normal state. and uniting
forth her mowers and energies visiblv. PAS
sion. too. which is the LIGHTNING of the mind,
obliterates bv its brightness all the littlenes-
ses and weaknesses of the character and en-
abes us for moment To soar far above the
earth and everything earthly. tightening.
tbourb pbysical process. is sometbi me- ana
loeous. Gazing ON it makes the heart swell.
and sends up the Imagination far above the
visible. diurnal sphere. As looked down.
from my lofty position, upon the clouds,
charged heavily with electricity, now and
then obtained glimpses into something like a
new world. Immense caverns opened up a
vista into the bowels of that vapory creation,
laying open long, sinuous valley, fantastic
mountains, chasms, and precipices, glittering
plans and heaving seas, all sheathed with the
brilliancy of lightning. Then followed inten-
SO darkness, and then another fit of ofrevelation
after which the eye descended to the lake, and
beheld tracks of blue light spread over it
like pattern, quivering, palpitating, and ex-
panding towards each other till they met,
and became coextensive with the surface Of
the water, converting into one sea of flame
the whole distance between Switzerland and
Savoy. During a lull in the storm, reached
home with the children, after which / sat up
during half the night with my wife, admiring,
from an open window, the most glorious of
all visible, created things, for neither sun nor
moon, nor stars, have for me half the fasci-
nation possessed by lightning, when loud
thunder accompanies its birth-pangs, usher
ing in its existence to the world.
No contrast copld he oreater that that xvb;ob
the lake now nresantad Calm and attn ,v,,,,
something like n sort breotb breathing ovar
a eazod to,vords .ba roo,,s 90 MalIo,,.
whence Ga prorx, ,rro.a ora 90 HE o,roo....
lattars N JnI;o The vorv roc,,s IN +ho s,..
LIGHT seam still lum;nors with love so com.
nIetelv has the genius of Ronssaau amaloa.
matad ;tsalf with na,,,re u, ,b;s ,o;obborhooa
We halted obort an borr NJ vayav wb;c,,
now onnaarad far roore romontic than ,rhon
ve livad tbora ,bouob n ,vas nrohahlv o,r
sv;no l;vod tbere that ;r,novtad 20 !. ;,s ohiof
;r+arast Fvarvhoav l,no,vs ,rt.. ,oo,,a,.
avn, hrs,,e tba orr;yol of = a;I;ro,a. ,-a..o.
in littla copn,rv inn all .be ;nnoa,as =,
which invar;ablv rusb ont in ssorch 81 ax.
,itemspt Fvarvhodv ;s fnI of snaonIa,;on
tho fooae Aha. o,,ra,r a. .ha ,u;,,
low Of tho vobiolo aud 70 ,i,aro ho anu n ,ho
background dimlv seen. the mvstsyv envelon.