_Mr. Fax._ And yet I question it much; and in the present state of human society I hold the universal inculcation of such a sentiment, in poetry and romance, to be not only a most gross delusion, but an error replete with the most pernicious practical consequences. For I have often seen a young man of high and aspiring genius, full of noble enthusiasm for the diffusion of truth and the general happiness of mankind, withdrawn from all intercourse with polished and intellectual society, by the distempered idea that he would nowhere find fit aliment for his high cogitations, but among heaths, and rocks, and torrents. _Mr. Forester._ In a state of society so corrupted as that in which we live, the best instructors and companions are ancient books; and these are best studied in those congenial solitudes, where the energies of nature are most pure and uncontrolled, and the aspect of external things recalls in some measure the departed glory of the world. _Mr. Fax._ Holding, as I do, that no branch of knowledge is valuable, but such as in its ultimate results has a plain and practical tendency to the general diffusion of moral and political truth, you must allow me to doubt the efficacy of solitary intercourse with stocks and stones, however rugged and fantastic in their shapes, towards the production of this effect. _Mr. Forester._ It is matter of historical testimony that occasional retirement into the recesses of nature has produced the most salutary effects of the very kind you require, in the instance of some of the most illustrious minds that have adorned the name of man. _Mr. Fax._ That the health and purity of the country, its verdure and its sunshine, have the most beneficial influence on the mental and corporeal faculties, I am very far from being inclined to deny: but this is a different consideration from that of the connection between the scenery of the mountains and the genius of liberty. Look into the records of the world. What have the mountains done for freedom and mankind? When have the mountains, to speak in the cant of the new school of poetry, ‘sent forth a voice of power’ to awe the oppressors of the world? Mountaineers are for the most part a stupid and ignorant race: and where there are stupidity and ignorance, there will be superstition; and where there is superstition, there will be slavery.