[Illustration: Fall of the Staubbath.]
In the poet and the philosopher, the lover of the sublime, and the
student of the beautiful in art--the contemplation of such a scene as
this must awaken ecstatic feelings of admiration and awe. Its effect
upon the mere man of the world, whose mind is clogged up with
common-places of life, must be overwhelming as the torrent itself;
perchance he soon recovers from the impression; but the lover of Nature,
in her wonders, reads lessons of infinite wisdom, combined with all that
is most fascinating to the mind of inquiring man. In the school of her
philosophy, mountains, rivers, and falls not only astonish and delight
him in their vast outlines and surfaces, but in their exhaustless
varieties and transformations, he enjoys old and new worlds of
knowledge, apart from the proud histories of man, and the comparative
insignificance of all that he has laboured to produce on the face of the
globe.
Few have witnessed the _Staubbach_, or similar wonders without
acknowledging the force of their impressions. This Fall is in the valley
of Lauterbrun, the most picturesque district of Switzerland. Simond,[1]
in describing its beauties, says, "we began to ascend the valley of
Lauterbrun, by the side of its torrent (the Lutschine) among fragments
of rocks, torn from the heights on both sides, and beautiful trees,
shooting up with great luxuriance and in infinite variety; smooth
pastures of the richest verdure, carpeted over every interval of plain
ground; and the harmony of the sonorous cow-bell of the Alps, heard
among the precipices above our heads and below us, told us we were not
in a desart.
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