Maurice, in the
Canton of le Valais. But there is an air of obtrusiveness in the Swiss
hermits age that did not belong to the place of which we write, since the
one is perched upon its high and narrow ledge, as if to show the world in
what dangerous and circumscribed limits God may be worshipped; while the
other sought exemption from absolute solitude, while it courted secrecy
with the most jealous caution. A small hut had been erected against the
side of the rock, in a manner that presented an oblique angle. Care had
been taken to surround it with such natural objects as left little reason
to apprehend that its real character could be known by any who did not
absolutely mount to the difficult shelf on which it stood. Light entered
into this primitive and humble abode by a window that looked into the
ravine, and a low door opened on the side next the valley. The
construction was partly of stone and partly of logs, with a roof of bark
and a chimney of mud and sticks.
One who, by his severe and gloomy brow, was a fit possessor of so secluded
a tenement, was, at the hour named, seated on a stone at the most salient
angle of the mountain, and at the place where the eye commanded the widest
and least-obstructed view of the abodes of man in the distance.
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