Compare Shelley's description of the setting to Victor's mood.

After the murder of William and the execution of Justine, Victor's family goes to the valley of Chamounix in an attempt to restore their spirits and find some happiness again.  Victor uses the word "sublime" many times to describe the beauty of the natural setting and its effect on him.  Such a word implies a great deal more than physical beauty; it implies that the nature Victor sees is inspiring, even transcendent.  These sights urge personal growth, perhaps even personal change, because they are so affective.  He says that

"These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving.  The elevated me from all littleness of feeling; and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillized [sic] it."  

Although he, at times, "indulged in the misery of reflection," Victor cannot help but be affected and changed by the natural beauty he sees around him in this place.  He marked the mountains, the river winding through the valley, the sound of the waterfalls, and their splendor begins to heal him.  The more time he spends in nature, reveling in its sublimity, the better he feels, and he knows that this was what his father intended when he proposed the journey.