High up on one side of us was a pilgrim station, where thousands of people come year by year, and probably they get fine fresh air and useful exercise. The French seem to walk farther for superstitious purposes than for mere pedestrian amusement.[XXXIII.] [XXXIII.] Among other celebrated French "stations" there is the mountain of La Salette, near Grenoble, where, even in one day, 16,000 pilgrims have ascended to visit the spot where the Virgin Mary was said to have spoken to some shepherds. On the occasion of my pilgrimage there I met some donkeys with panniers bringing down holy water (in lemonade bottles) which was sold throughout Europe for a shilling a bottle, until a priest at the bottom of the mountain started a private pump of his own. The woman who had been hired to personate the Holy Saint confessed the deception, and it was exploded before the courts of law in a report which I read on the spot; but the Roman Catholic papers, even in England, published attractive articles to support this flagrant imposture, and its truth and goodness were vehemently proclaimed in a book by the Romish Bishop of Birmingham, with the assent of the Pope. Methinks it is easier to march barefoot 100 miles over sharp stones than to plod your honest walk of life on common pavement and with strong soled boots. My English friend now got into my carriage, and we drove a little way from the road to the village of Bussang to see the source of the Moselle. This river rises under the "Ballon d'Alsace," a lofty mountain with a rounded top, and the stream consists at first of four or five very tiny trickling rivulets which unite and come forth in a little spring well about the size of a washing-tub, from which the water flows across the road in a channel that you can bridge with your fingers. But this bubbling brook had great interest for me, as I meant to follow its growth until it would be strong enough to bear me on its cool, clear water, now only like feathers strewed among the grass, and singing its first music very pretty and low. We like to see the source of a great river; a romantic man must have much piquant thought at the sight, and a poetic man must be stirred by its sentiment. Every great thought must also have had a source or germ, and it would be interesting to know how and when some of the grand ideas that have afterwards aroused nations first thrilled in the brain of a genius, a warrior, a philosopher, or a statesman. And besides having a source, each stream of thought has a current too, with ripples and deep pools, and scenery as it were around. Some thoughts are lofty, others broad; some are straight, and others round about; some are rushing, while others glide peacefully; only a few are clear and deep.