Our pleasures, tastes, and even our judgments are so much affected by the circumstances under which they are called into action, that one has need of diffidence on the subject of their infallibility, if it be only to protect himself from the imputation of inconsistency. I was pleased with the Lake of Lungern in 1828, but the term is not strong enough for the gratification it gave me on this return to it. Perhaps the day, the peculiar play of light and shade, a buoyancy of spirits, or some auxiliary causes, may have contributed to produce this state of mind; or it is possible that the views were really improved by changing the direction of the route; as all connoisseurs in scenery know that the Hudson is much finer when descending than when ascending its stream; but let the cause be what it might, had I then been asked what particular spot in Europe had given me most delight, by the perfection of its natural beauties, taken in connexion with its artificial accessories, I should have answered that it was the shores of the lake of Lungern. Nor, as I have told you, was I alone in this feeling, for one and all, big and little,--in short, the whole party joined in pronouncing the entire landscape absolutely exquisite. Any insignificant change, a trifle more or less of humidity in the atmosphere, the absence or the intervention of a few clouds, a different hour or a different frame of mind, may have diminished our pleasure, for these are enjoyments which, like the flavour of delicate wines, or the melody of sweet music, are deranged by the condition of the nerves, or a want of harmony, in the chords. After this explanation you will feel how difficult it will be to describe the causes of our delight. The leading features of the landscape, however, were a road that ran along the shore beneath a forest, within ten feet of the water, winding, losing itself, and re-appearing with the sinuosities of the bank; water, limpid as air and blue as the void of the heavens, unruffled and even holy in its aspect, as if it reflected the pure space above; a mountain-side, on the opposite shore, that was high enough to require study to draw objects from its bosom, on the distant heights, and yet near enough below, to seem to be within an arrow's flight; meadows shorn like lawns, scattered over its broad breast; woods of larches, to cast their gloom athwart the glades and to deepen the shadows; brown chalets that seemed to rise out of the sward, at the bidding of the eye; and here and there a cottage poised on a giddy height, with a chapel or two to throw a religious calm over all! There was nothing ambitious in this view, which was rural in every feature, but it was the very _bean idéal_ of rustic beauty, and without a single visible blemish to weaken its effect. It was some such picture of natural objects as is formed of love by a confiding and ingenuous youth of fifteen.