It is a characteristic document. I felt as I read it that
the author before starting had made up his mind to admire only what he
thought it would be creditable in him to admire, to look at nature and
art only through the spectacles that had been handed down to him by
generation after generation of prigs and impostors. The first glimpse of
Mont Blanc threw Mr Pontifex into a conventional ecstasy. "My feelings I
cannot express. I gasped, yet hardly dared to breathe, as I viewed for
the first time the monarch of the mountains. I seemed to fancy the
genius seated on his stupendous throne far above his aspiring brethren
and in his solitary might defying the universe. I was so overcome by my
feelings that I was almost bereft of my faculties, and would not for
worlds have spoken after my first exclamation till I found some relief in
a gush of tears. With pain I tore myself from contemplating for the
first time 'at distance dimly seen' (though I felt as if I had sent my
soul and eyes after it), this sublime spectacle." After a nearer view of
the Alps from above Geneva he walked nine out of the twelve miles of the
descent: "My mind and heart were too full to sit still, and I found some
relief by exhausting my feelings through exercise.
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