What I ask is wine--wine which will sparkle in
the glass, and stimulate intelligence instead of weighing it down.
April 11, 1868. (_Mornex sur Saleve_).--I left town in a great storm of
wind, which was raising clouds of dust along the suburban roads, and two
hours later I found myself safely installed among the mountains, just
like last year. I think of staying a week here.... The sounds of the
village are wafted to my open window, barkings of distant dogs, voices
of women at the fountain, the songs of birds in the lower orchards. The
green carpet of the plain is dappled by passing shadows thrown upon it
by the clouds; the landscape has the charm of delicate tint and a sort
of languid grace. Already I am full of a sense of well-being, I am
tasting the joys of that contemplative state in which the soul, issuing
from itself, becomes as it were the soul of a country or a landscape,
and feels living within it a multitude of lives. Here is no more
resistance, negation, blame; everything is affirmative; I feel myself in
harmony with nature and with surroundings, of which I seem to myself the
expression. The heart opens to the immensity of things. This is what I
love! _Nam mihires, non me rebus submittere conor_. April 12, 1868.
(_Easter Day_), _Mornex Eight_ A. M.
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