Far more significant and ripe—­in fact, mature—­are the letters in 1779, shewing, as they do, the attitude of a man of profound mind, in the prime of his life and time.  He was the first German poet to fall under the spell of the mountains—­the strongest spell, as he held, which Nature wields in our latitudes.  ’These sublime, incomparable scenes will remain for ever in my mind’; and of one view in particular, over the mountains of Savoy and Valais, the Lake of Geneva, and Mont Blanc, he said:  ’The view was so great, man’s eye could not grasp it.’

He wrote of his feelings with perfect openness to Frau von Stein, and these letters extended farther back than those from Switzerland, and were partly mixed with them.

From Selz: 

An uncommonly fine day, a happy country—­still all green, only here and there a yellow beech or oak leaf.  Meadows still in their silver beauty—­a soft welcome breeze everywhere.  Grapes improving with every step and every day.  Every peasant’s house has a vine up to the roof, and every courtyard a great overhanging arbour.  The air of heaven soft, warm, and moist.  The Rhine and the clear mountains near at hand, the changing woods, meadows, fields like gardens, do men good, and give me a kind of comfort which I have long lacked.

The pen remains as ever the pen of a poet, but he looks at Switzerland now with a mature, settled taste, analyzing his impressions, and studying mountains, glaciers, boulders, scientifically.

Of the Staubbach Fall, near Lauterbrunnen (Oct. 9th, 1779): 

The clouds broke in the upper air, and the blue sky came through.  Clouds clung to the steep sides of the rocks; even the top where the Staubbach falls over, was lightly covered.  It was a very noble sight ... then the clouds came down into the valley and covered all the foreground.  The great wall over which the water falls, still stood out on the right.  Night came on....  In the Munsterthal, through which we came, everything was lofty, but more within the mind’s power of comprehension than these.  In comparison with the immensities, one is, and must remain, too small.

And after visiting the Berne glacier from Thun (Oct. 14): 

It is difficult to write after all this ... the first glance from the mountain is striking, the district is surprisingly extensive and pleasant ... the road indescribably beautiful ... the view from the Lake of Brienz towards the snow mountains at sunset is great.

More eloquent is the letter of October 3rd, from the Munsterthal: