While in the rosy vale
Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free.
Thomson
St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night's repose to pursue his
journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for
Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes,
through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they
had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and then,
softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses appeared among
the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers; or a pastoral
valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the cliffs, with flocks
and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet, that refreshed it
with perpetual green. St. Aubert could not repent the having taken this
fatiguing road, though he was this day, also, frequently obliged to
alight, to walk along the rugged precipice, and to climb the steep and
flinty mountain.
The wonderful sublimity and variety of the prospects
repaid him for all this, and the enthusiasm, with which they were viewed
by his young companions, heightened his own, and awakened a remembrance
of all the delightful emotions of his early days, when the sublime
charms of nature were first unveiled to him. He found great pleasure in
conversing with Valancourt, and in listening to his ingenuous
remarks. The fire and simplicity of his manners seemed to render him
a characteristic figure in the scenes around them; and St. Aubert
discovered in his sentiments the justness and the dignity of an elevated
mind, unbiased by intercourse with the world. He perceived, that his
opinions were formed, rather than imbibed; were more the result of
thought, than of learning. Of the world he seemed to know nothing; for
he believed well of all mankind, and this opinion gave him the reflected
image of his own heart.
St. Aubert, as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in his
path, often looked forward with pleasure to Emily and Valancourt, as
they strolled on together; he, with a countenance of animated delight,
pointing to her attention some grand feature of the scene; and she,
listening and observing with a look of tender seriousness, that spoke
the elevation of her mind. They appeared like two lovers who had
never strayed beyond these their native mountains; whose situation had
secluded them from the frivolities of common life, whose ideas were
simple and grand, like the landscapes among which they moved, and who
knew no other happiness, than in the union of pure and affectionate
hearts. St. Aubert smiled, and sighed at the romantic picture of
felicity his fancy drew; and sighed again to think, that nature and
simplicity were so little known to the world, as that their pleasures
were thought romantic.