III. CUMÆ 297

sound tired sleep in a little one-windowed room at Lans-le-bourg, at six of the summer morning, June 2nd, 1841; the red aiguilles on the north relieved against pure blue-the great pyramid of snow down the valley in one sheet of eastern light. I dressed in three minutes, ran down the village street, across the stream, and climbed the grassy slope on the south side of the valley, up to the first pines.

I had found my life again;-all the best of it. What good of religion, love, admiration or hope,¹ had ever been taught me, or felt by my best nature, rekindled at once; and my line of work, both by my own will and the aid granted to it by fate in the future, determined for me. I went down thankfully to my father and mother, and told them I was sure I should get well.

As to my mere physical state, the doctors had been entirely mistaken about me. I wanted bracing air, exercise, and rest from all artificial excitement. The air of the Campagna was the worst they could have sent me into-the life of Rome the worst they could have chosen.²

58. The three following diary entries, which meant much afterwards, may summarily end what I fear has been a tiresome chapter.

(I.) “GENEVA, June 5th.-Yesterday from Chambéry,-a fresh north wind blowing away the dust. Much pleased with the respectable young wife of a confectioner, at one of the mid-towns where I went to get some Savoy biscuits-and asked for ‘a pound.’ ‘Mais, Monsieur, une livre sera un peu-volumineuse! je vous en donnerai la moitié; vous verrez si cela vous suffira;’-‘Ah, Louise’ (to a little bright-eyed lady in the inner room, who was expressing her disapprobation of some of the affairs of life too loudly), ‘si tu n’es pas sage, tu vas savoir’-but so playfully and kindly! Got here on a lovely afternoon near sunset, and the

¹ [“We live by admiration, hope, and love”: for Ruskin’s constant quotation of the line of Wordsworth, see the General Index.]

² [For an additional passage which here follows in the MS., see the Appendix; below, p. 616.]

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