child. “Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your
wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and
placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?”

I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on
these preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative
happiness, and I think of them with pleasure. My country, my beloved
country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again
beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely
lake!

Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also
closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still
more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I
foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human
beings. Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only in one single
circumstance, that in all the misery I imagined and dreaded, I did not
conceive the hundredth part of the anguish I was destined to endure.

It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates
of the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at
Secheron, a village at the distance of half a league from the city. The sky
was serene; and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot
where my poor William had been murdered. As I could not pass through the
town, I was obliged to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais.
During this short voyage I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont
Blanc in the most beautiful figures. The storm appeared to approach
rapidly, and, on landing, I ascended a low hill, that I might observe its
progress. It advanced; the heavens were clouded, and I soon felt the rain
coming slowly in large drops, but its violence quickly increased.

I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm
increased every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash
over my head. It was echoed from Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of
Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the
lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant
every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself
from the preceding flash. The storm, as is often the case in
Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The

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