And, to make the matter worse, I had also at this time finally to separate from my oldest companions, a pair of shoes. They formed the last relic of my English wardrobe, and had borne me over a long distance. Having really an attachment for them, I placed them high up in the fork of a Spanish chestnut tree, whither I could not help again climbing up, that I might take a last look at them as they rested pale with the dust of leagues, uncomplaining though deserted. In a few days more I had reached the heart of Switzerland; but what a contrast had I experienced in passing from one country to the other! The whole of France, with the exception of my ever happy Loire, must surely be the most monotonous and unpicturesque tract of the whole continent; while Switzerland presents, at every turn, a combination of the paradisaical and of terrific sterility. Smiling patriarchal pastures, walled in by granite mountains, frowning in eternal silence and solitude, save when thundering with the awful avalanche. I said that their piles of granite were barren; but what a moment is it to explore your way companionless, and find them to be the source and spring of richness and fertility to Europe, as the sun is of warmth and light to the world--to pick your doubtfully hazardous way across the glacier, and there read great Nature's receipt for making rivers. You find that the nearer you climb towards the heavens, the more palpable are the works of their Creator:-- "My altars are the mountains, and the ocean-- Earth, air, stars--all that proceed from the great Whole, Who has made and will receive the soul." As to how mine was likely to be disposed of, the moment had now arrived when I was to consider; for not only had severe sickness overtaken me, but I suspected that my death-blow had been received. Severe sickness will bring the stoutest of us, and the most unthinking, to reflect soberly on the past, the present, and the future; at all events, it had this effect on me one night, among many other restless and sleepless ones, as in solitude I watched the flickering flame of the candle by my bedside. As for the present, until the moment of leaving my country, I had bestowed but little attention on it. It is the man of the world, who is wisely engrossed with that period; and, unfortunately, I had never been gifted with, or rather had never acquired, a sufficient stock of common sense to enable me to approximate that character. We all love to contemplate and dwell on the brightest side of things, simply because that is the most pleasing to us; and having but little self-denial, I ever enveloped myself in the past, the sunniest side of my existence.