"I have just returned from a drive along the shore of the Leman. The recollection of Madame Spiegler, rolling and rushing through the waltz like a dolphin through the waves; or like any thing caught in an enormous whirlpool, sweeping round perpetually until it was swept out of sight, had fevered me. The air here is certainly delicious. It has a sense of life--a vivid, yet soft, freshness, that makes the mere act of breathing it delightful. But I have mercy on you--not one word of Clarens, not one word of Meillerie. Take it for granted that Ferney is burnt down, as it well might be without any harm to the picturesque; and that Jean Jacques never wrote, played the knave, or existed. If I were a Swiss Caliph Omar, I should make a general seizure, to be followed by a general conflagration, of every volume that has ever touched on the wit and wickedness of the one, or the intolerable sensibility of the other. I should next extend the flame to all tours, meditations, and musings on hills, valleys, and lakes; prohibit all sunset 'sublimities' as an offence against the state; and lay all raptures at the 'distant view of Mont Blanc,' or the 'ascent of the Rhighi,' if not under penalty of prison, at least under a bond never to be seen in the territory again. But I must make my _adieux_. _Apropos_, if you _should_ accidentally hear any thing of your _pelerin-a-pied_ friend Lafontaine--for I conjecture that he has gone to discover the fountains of the Nile, or is at this moment a candidate for the office of court-chamberlain at Timbuctoo--let me hear it. Madame Spiegler is really uneasy on the subject, though it has not diminished either her weight or her velocity, nor will prevent her waltzing till the end of the world, or of herself. _One_ sentence--nay, one syllable--will be enough.