{"product_id":"2940014397032","title":"The Vampyre; A Tale","description":"EXTRACT OF A LETTER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                             FROM GENEVA.\u003cbr\u003e                            ______________\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I breathe freely in the neighbourhood of this lake; the ground upon\u003cbr\u003ewhich I tread has been subdued from the earliest ages; the principal\u003cbr\u003eobjects which immediately strike my eye, bring to my recollection\u003cbr\u003escenes, in which man acted the hero and was the chief object of\u003cbr\u003einterest. Not to look back to earlier times of battles and sieges,\u003cbr\u003ehere is the bust of Rousseau--here is a house with an inscription\u003cbr\u003edenoting that the Genevan philosopher first drew breath under its\u003cbr\u003eroof. A little out of the town is Ferney, the residence of Voltaire;\u003cbr\u003ewhere that wonderful, though certainly in many respects contemptible,\u003cbr\u003echaracter, received, like the hermits of old, the visits of pilgrims,\u003cbr\u003enot only from his own nation, but from the farthest boundaries of\u003cbr\u003eEurope. Here too is Bonnet's abode, and, a few steps beyond, the house\u003cbr\u003eof that astonishing woman Madame de Stael: perhaps the first of her\u003cbr\u003esex, who has really proved its often claimed equality with, the nobler\u003cbr\u003eman. We have before had women who have written interesting-novels and\u003cbr\u003epoems, in which their tact at observing drawing-room characters has\u003cbr\u003eavailed them; but never since the days of Heloise have those faculties\u003cbr\u003ewhich arc peculiar to man, been developed as the possible inheritance\u003cbr\u003eof woman. Though even here, as in the case of Heloise, our sex have\u003cbr\u003enot been backward in alledging the existence of an Abeilard in the\u003cbr\u003eperson of M. Schlegel as the inspirer of her works. But to proceed:\u003cbr\u003eupon the same side of the lake, Gibbon, Bonnivard, Bradshaw, and\u003cbr\u003eothers mark, as it were, the stages for our progress; whilst upon the\u003cbr\u003eother side there is one house, built by Diodati, the friend of Milton,\u003cbr\u003ewhich has contained within its walls, for several months, that poet\u003cbr\u003ewhom we have so often read together, and who--if human passions remain\u003cbr\u003ethe same, and human feelings, like chords, on being swept by nature's\u003cbr\u003eimpulses shall vibrate as before--will be placed by posterity in the\u003cbr\u003efirst rank of our English Poets. You must have heard, or the Third\u003cbr\u003eCanto of Childe Harold will have informed you, that Lord Byron resided\u003cbr\u003emany months in this neighbourhood. I went with some friends a few days\u003cbr\u003eago, after having seen Ferney, to view this mansion. I trod the floors\u003cbr\u003ewith the same feelings of awe and respect as we did, together, those\u003cbr\u003eof Shakespeare's dwelling at Stratford. I sat down in a chair of the\u003cbr\u003esaloon, and satisfied myself that I was resting on what he had made\u003cbr\u003ehis constant scat. I found a servant there who had lived with him;\u003cbr\u003eshe, however, gave me but little information. She pointed out his\u003cbr\u003ebed-chamber upon the same level as the saloon and dining-room, and\u003cbr\u003einformed me that he retired to rest at three, got up at two, and\u003cbr\u003eemployed himself a long time over his toilette; that he never went to\u003cbr\u003esleep without a pair of pistols and a dagger by his side, and that he\u003cbr\u003enever eat animal food. He apparently spent some part of every day upon\u003cbr\u003ethe lake in an English boat. There is a balcony from the saloon which\u003cbr\u003elooks upon the lake and the mountain Jura; and I imagine, that it must\u003cbr\u003ehave been hence, he contemplated the storm so magnificently described\u003cbr\u003ein the Third Canto; for you have from here a most extensive view of\u003cbr\u003eall the points he has therein depicted. I can fancy him like the\u003cbr\u003escathed pine, whilst all around was sunk to repose, still waking to\u003cbr\u003eobserve, what gave but a weak image of the storms which had desolated\u003cbr\u003ehis own breast.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083660214512,"sku":"2940014397032","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014397032","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}