The Mysteries of Udolpho

While in the rosy vale

Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free.

Thomson

St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night's repose to pursue his

journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for

Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes,

through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they

had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and then,

softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses appeared among

the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers; or a pastoral

valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the cliffs, with flocks

and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet, that refreshed it

with perpetual green. St. Aubert could not repent the having taken this

fatiguing road, though he was this day, also, frequently obliged to

alight, to walk along the rugged precipice, and to climb the steep and

flinty mountain.

The wonderful sublimity and variety of the prospects

repaid him for all this, and the enthusiasm, with which they were viewed

by his young companions, heightened his own, and awakened a remembrance

of all the delightful emotions of his early days, when the sublime

charms of nature were first unveiled to him. He found great pleasure in

conversing with Valancourt, and in listening to his ingenuous

remarks. The fire and simplicity of his manners seemed to render him

a characteristic figure in the scenes around them; and St. Aubert

discovered in his sentiments the justness and the dignity of an elevated

mind, unbiased by intercourse with the world. He perceived, that his

opinions were formed, rather than imbibed; were more the result of

thought, than of learning. Of the world he seemed to know nothing; for

he believed well of all mankind, and this opinion gave him the reflected

image of his own heart.

St. Aubert, as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in his

path, often looked forward with pleasure to Emily and Valancourt, as

they strolled on together; he, with a countenance of animated delight,

pointing to her attention some grand feature of the scene; and she,

listening and observing with a look of tender seriousness, that spoke

the elevation of her mind. They appeared like two lovers who had

never strayed beyond these their native mountains; whose situation had

secluded them from the frivolities of common life, whose ideas were

simple and grand, like the landscapes among which they moved, and who

knew no other happiness, than in the union of pure and affectionate

hearts. St. Aubert smiled, and sighed at the romantic picture of

felicity his fancy drew; and sighed again to think, that nature and

simplicity were so little known to the world, as that their pleasures

were thought romantic.