To commence:--
"When we left Zielime, and advanced into the province of Masovia, the
country around Praga rose at every step in fresh beauty. The
numberless chains of gently swelling hills which encompass it on each
side of the Vistula were in some parts checkered with corn fields,
meadows, and green pastures covered with sheep, whose soft bleatings
thrilled in my ears and transported my senses into new regions, so
different was my charmed and tranquillized mind from the tossing
anxieties attendant on the horrors I had recently witnessed. Surely
there is nothing in the world, short of the most undivided reciprocal
attachment, that has such power over the workings of the human heart
as the mild sweetness of nature. The most ruffled temper, when
emerging from the town, will subside into a calm at the sight of a
wide stretch of landscape reposing in the twilight of a fine evening.
It is then that the spirit of peace settles upon the heart, unfetters
the thoughts and elevates the soul to the Creator. It is then that we
behold the Parent of the universe in his works; we see his grandeur
in earth, sea, and sky: we feel his affection in the emotions which
they raise, and, half mortal, half etherealized, forget where we are,
in the anticipation of what that world must be of which this earth is
merely the shadow. [Footnote: This description of the banks of the
Vistula was given to me with smiles and sighs.
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