There are travellers more learned, and equally capable of noting facts with M. de Chateaubriand. They have traversed the same countries, seen the same objects, and collected an immense mass of facts, which they have published, on their return, to be read by none, but kindred spirits, as dull as themselves. In his record of his travels in the same countries, we are beguiled onward, under the spell of a sustained charm. The imagination is constantly in action; the heart swells; images of grandeur and beauty, remembrances of pathos and power are evoked from every side, and the shadows of the past throng round us. Why is it so? The former see brute nature, in its lifeless and motionless materiality, divorced from mind and memory. The latter not only sees that universe with a radiant eye, but holds converse with a superincumbent universe, as much more vast, beautiful, touching, diversified, than the other, as mind is superior to matter. It is this creation of thoughts, remembrances, poetry, and affecting images, in his mind, intimately connected with the other, and overshadowing it, like an illumined stratum over a region covered with palpable mist, by virtue of which he makes nature eloquent. This is the charm spread over all the beautiful passages that abound in his writings; a peculiar aptitude to associate nature, in every position and form, with the universe of thought within him. Such is the endowment of all poets, orators, and painters, that have produced efforts worthy of immortality. Common writers see nature dead, silent, sterile--mere brute and voiceless matter. Endowed minds kindle it into speech, beauty and grandeur; interpreting it by the internal world in their own minds. Note 39a, page 134.