I love to speculate how the statesman, the wily man of forecasting thought and deep devices, must feel in presence of agencies which make those of mere man’s contrivance seem poor and contemptible; and how the fine lady, whose foot knows no harder surface than a velvet carpet, and whose artificial existence palls by its own voluptuousness, contemplates a picture of grand and stern sublimity. Disguise it how they will, feign indifference how they may, such scenes always are felt, and deeply felt! The most accomplished lounger of St. James’s Street does not puff his cigar so coolly as he affects to do, nor is that heart all unmoved that throbs beneath the graceful folds of a rich Cashmere. Now and then some Brummagem spirit intrudes, who sees in the felling torrent but a wasted “water-power:” but even he has his own far-reaching thoughts imbued with a poetry of their own. He sees in these solitudes new cities arise, the busy haunts of acting heads and hands; he hears in imagination the heavy bang of the iron hammer, the roar of the furnace, the rush of steam, the many-voiced multitude called by active labour to new activity of mind; and perhaps he soars away, in thought, to those far-off wilds of the new world, whose people, clothed by these looms, are brought thus into brotherhood with their kindred men. I, myself, have few sympathies in common with these; but I respect the feelings that I do not fathom. “_Nihil humani a me alienum puto_.” What has suggested these thoughts? A little excursion that I made this evening from the village of Lichtenthal towards the Waterfall, a winding glen, narrowing as you advance; wilder too, but not less peopled; every sheltered spot having its own dwelling-place--the picturesque _chalet_, with its far-stretching eave, and its quaint galleries of carved wood, its brightly shining windows sparkling between the clustering vine-leaves, and its frieze of Indian corn hung up beneath the roof to dry. Leaving the carriage, I followed the bank of the stream--just such a river as in my boyish days I loved to linger by, and fancy I was fishing. It was no more than fancy: for although my rod and landing-net were in most fitting perfection, my hackles and orange bodies, my green drakes and may-flies, all that could be wished, I was too dreamy and _destrait_ for “the gentle craft;” and liked Walton better in his rambling discursions than in his more practical teaching. What a glorious day for scenery, too! Not one of those scorching, blue sky, cloudless days, when a general hardness prevails, but a mingled light of sun and cloud shadow, with misty distances, and dark, deep foregrounds on the still water, where ever and anon a heavy plash, breaking in widening circles, told of the speckled trout: save that, no other sound was heard. All was calm and noiseless, as in some far-off valley of the Mississippi, a little surging of the water on the rocky shore--a faint melancholy plash--scarce heard even in the stillness.