GehejmelegationsraadBilleSteenAndersen

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ceeding, came in a few minutes down. Here the
sinking sun illuminated the unparalleled landscape
spread before us — never have I beheld so glorious a
scene, never such a divine contrast — it was like
Paradise and Hell contrasted. The serene azure o f an
Italian sky with light purple clouds and the blue medi-
terranian with its vast and gleaming mirror, the lovely
fairy-like islands, the picturesque rocky promontories and
indented shores, and the great city with its spires,
monasteries, its battlements and castles all bathed in the
golden light o f a setting sun — and then behind you
the perpetual roar of the volcano recalling the horrid
scene o f sulphur-smoke and fire, ashes, stones and the
red, liquid Lava — the whole picture o f Nature’s -wild
and horrid powers unchained and threatening ruin and
devastation to all around — to have witnessed such a
contrast is to have fixed a picture and an idea tipon
your mind to last with life. What that idea is, 1
scarcely need tell — who has not reflected upon the
beauty, serene and heavenly, o f virtue — the dark and
dismal abyss o f vice — the precipice by which we stand
which parts the one from the other — and who will
not find in Vesuvius and the heavenly view from- it a
contrast in nature realizing our own thoughts on life /«
I Dagbogen finder jeg ogsaa en Beretning om hans
Besøg med flere Venner til det skjæbnesvangre Ischia,
hvor de paa Tilbagevejen nær havde fundet Døden i et
Uvejr: »Every timber in the boat shook and quaked in'
the furious battle with the angry sea — the wind grew
fea rfu l — and as it came bellowing into the sail bent
our boat down into the water. I thought every moment
we were about to capsize; the clouds flew overhead with
a giddy rapidity — sea gulls with a monotonous cry
hurried to the shore — it grew dark as evening and big