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I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood

beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a

glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of

the hills to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast

mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung

me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn

silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was

broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast

fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking,

reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which,

through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon

rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands.

These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest

consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me

from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove

my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it.