"Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer?
Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid.

Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness ?" I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on these preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative happiness, and I think of them with pleasure.

My country, my beloved country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely lake! Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me.

Night also closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more gloomily.

The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.