I have no distinct recollection of dates, or even of the exact season of the year. I believe it was the early Summer, but in my memory the whole journey is now a mass of confused loveliness and pleasure. Not that we had the best of weather all the way. I well recollect pouring rains, and from the fact that I distinctly remember my first view of an Alpine height, I am certain we must have had days of mist and rain immediately before. That sight, however, to me more like an individual revelation or vision than the impact of an object upon the brain, stands in my mind altogether isolated from preceding and following impressions--alone, a thing to praise God for, if there be a God to praise. If there be not, then was the whole thing a grand and lovely illusion, worthy, for grandeur and loveliness, of a world with a God at the heart of it. But the grandeur and the loveliness spring from the operation of natural laws; the laws themselves are real and true--how could the false result from them? I hope yet, and will hope, that I am not a bubble filled with the mocking breath of a Mephistopheles, but a child whom his infinite Father will not hardly judge because he could not believe in him so much as he would. I will tell how the vision came. Although comparatively few people visited Switzerland in those days, Mr Osborne had been there before, and for some reason or other had determined on going round by Interlachen. At Thun we found a sail-boat, which we hired to take us and our luggage. At starting, an incident happened which would not be worth mentioning, but for the impression it made upon me. A French lady accompanied by a young girl approached Mr Osborne--doubtless perceiving he was a clergyman, for, being an _Evangelical_ of the most pure, honest, and narrow type, he was in every point and line of his countenance marked a priest and apart from his fellow-men--and asked him to allow her and her daughter to go in the boat with us to Interlachen. A glow of pleasure awoke in me at sight of his courtly behaviour, with lifted hat and bowed head; for I had never been in the company of such a gentleman before. But the wish instantly followed that his son might have shared in his courtesy. We partook freely of his justice and benevolence, but he showed us no such grace as he showed the lady. I have since observed that sons are endlessly grateful for courtesy from their fathers. The lady and her daughter sat down in the stern of the boat; and therefore Charley and I, not certainly to our discomfiture, had to go before the mast. The men rowed out into the lake, and then hoisted the sail. Away we went careering before a pleasant breeze. As yet it blew fog and mist, but the hope was that it would soon blow it away.