_Heart._ God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in that proposition:[28] and I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes, to make us happy. Where could they find such objects as in America for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects worthy of immortality to render her pencil immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the Passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural Bridge; it is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, and thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello--where has Nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye?--mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of Nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun, when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all nature! I hope in God no circumstance may ever make either seek an asylum from grief!... Deeply practiced in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drunk! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! Who, then, can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?... [28] That is, Mr. and Mrs. Cosway to visit America. I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my night-cap. Methinks I hear you wish to Heaven I had called a little sooner, and so spared you the ennui of such a sermon.... We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me fear for your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable journey. The same cause has prevented me from being able to give you an account of your friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will probably send the Count de Moustier and the Marquis de Brehan to America. Danguerville promised to visit me but has not done it yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with me, and entertains me with anecdotes of his five-and-thirty years' imprisonment. How fertile is the mind of man, which can make the Bastile and dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes! You know this was for making four verses on Madame De Pompadour. But I think you told me you did not know the verses. They were these: "Sans ésprit, sans sentiment, Sans être belle, ni neuve, En France on peut avoir le premier amant: Pompadour en est l'épreuve."