If our impulses were confined to hunger,
thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by
every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may
convey to us.
We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!
It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some
time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered
both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated
the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very
uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and
interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a
league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The
opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I
now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league;
and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess
of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea,
or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains,
whose aerial summits hung over its recesses.
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