Corinne, Volume 1 | Page 9

and his sadness, far from souring
his temper, only inspired him with more condescension and goodness
towards others.
Two or three times during the passage from Harwich to Empden the sea

put on the appearance of approaching storm; Lord Nelville counselled
the sailors, restored confidence to the passengers, and when he himself
assisted in working the ship, when he took for a moment the place of
the steersman, there was in all he did, a skill and a power which could
not be considered as merely the effect of the agility of the body,--there
was soul in all that he did.
On his quitting the vessel all the crew crowded around Oswald to take
leave of him; they all thanked him for a thousand little services which
he had rendered them during the voyage, and which he no longer
remembered. Upon one occasion, perhaps, it was a child which had
occupied a large share of his attention; more often an old man, whose
tottering steps he had supported when the wind agitated the ship. Such
a general attention, without any regard to rank or quality, was perhaps
never met with. During the whole day he would scarcely bestow a
single moment upon himself: influenced alike by melancholy and
benevolence, he gave his whole time to others. On leaving him the
sailors said to him with one voice, "My dear Lord, may you be more
happy!" Oswald had not once expressed the internal pain he felt; and
the men of another rank, who had accompanied him in his passage, had
not spoken a word to him on that subject. But the common people, in
whom their superiors rarely confide, accustom themselves to discover
sentiments and feelings by other means than speech: they pity you
when you suffer, though they are ignorant of the cause of your grief,
and their spontaneous pity is unmixed with either blame or advice.
Chapter ii.
Travelling, whatever may be said of it, is one of the saddest pleasures
of life. When you find yourself comfortable in some foreign city it
begins to feel, in some degree, like your own country; but to traverse
unknown realms, to hear a language spoken which you hardly
comprehend, to see human countenances which have no connection
either with your past recollections or future prospects, is solitude and
isolation, without dignity and without repose; for that eagerness, that
haste to arrive where nobody expects us, that agitation, of which
curiosity is the only cause, inspires us with very little esteem for

ourselves, till the moment when new objects become a little old, and
create around us some soft ties of sentiment and habit.
The grief of Oswald was, then, redoubled in traversing Germany in
order to repair to Italy. On account of the war it was necessary to avoid
France and its environs; it was also necessary to keep aloof from the
armies who rendered the roads impracticable. This necessity of
occupying his mind with particulars material to the journey, of
adopting, every day, and almost every instant, some new resolution,
was quite insupportable to Lord Nelville. His health, far from becoming
better, often obliged him to stop, when he felt the strongest desire to
hasten to his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood,
and took scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty,
and became his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no
longer wished for life but as it might become instrumental to the
defence of his country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal
claims upon us? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we
must not offer it such a debilitated existence as I drag along to ask of
the sun some principle of life to enable me to struggle against my
miseries. None but a father would receive me to his bosom, under such
circumstances, with affection increased in proportion as I was
abandoned by nature and by destiny."
Lord Nelville had flattered himself that the continual variety of external
objects would distract his imagination a little from those ideas by
which it was habitually occupied; but that circumstance was far from
producing, at first, this happy effect. After any great misfortune we
must become familiarised anew with everything that surrounds us;
accustom ourselves to the faces that we behold again, to the house in
which we dwell, to the daily habits that we resume; each of these
efforts is a painful shock, and nothing multiplies them like a journey.
The only pleasure of Lord Nelville was to traverse the Tirolese
Mountains upon a Scotch horse which he had brought with him, and
which like the horses of that country ascended heights at a gallop: he
quitted the high road in order