It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy of Alpine winters is
its own reward. Baseless, in a sense, it is more than worth more
permanent improvements. The dream of health is perfect while it
lasts; and if, in trying to realise it, you speedily wear out the
dear hallucination, still every day, and many times a day, you are
conscious of a strength you scarce possess, and a delight in living
as merry as it proves to be transient.
The brightness - heaven and earth conspiring to be bright - the
levity and quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence - more stirring
than a tumult; the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all
have their part in the effect and on the memory, 'TOUS VOUS TAPENT
SUR LA TETE'; and yet when you have enumerated all, you have gone no
nearer to explain or even to qualify the delicate exhilaration that
you feel - delicate, you may say, and yet excessive, greater than can
be said in prose, almost greater than an invalid can bear. There is
a certain wine of France known in England in some gaseous disguise,
but when drunk in the land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as
river water, and as heady as verse.
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