Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands - Volume 2 - By Harriet Beecher Stowe




































































































 -  It was night as we drove
into Geneva, and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a voice
demanding - Page 108
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It Was Night As We Drove Into Geneva, And Stopped At The Messagerie.

I heard with joy a voice demanding if this were Monsieur Besshare.

I replied, not without some scruples of conscience, "_Oui, monsieur, c'est moi,_" though the name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to respond. In half an hour we were at home, in the mansion of Monsieur Fazy.

Geneve, Monday, June 27. The day dawned clear over this palace of enchantment. The mountains, the lake, the entire landscape on every side revealed itself from our lofty windows with transparent brilliancy. This house is built on high ground, at the end of the lake near where the Rhone flows out. It is very high in the rooms, and we are in the fourth story, and have distant views on all four sides. The windows are very large, and open in leaves, on hinges, like doors, leaving the entire window clear, as a frame for the distant picture.

In the afternoon we rode out across the Rhone, where it breaks from the lake, and round upon the ascending shore. It is seldom here that the Alps are visible. The least mist hides them completely, so that travellers are wont to record it in their diaries as a great event, "I saw Mont Blanc to-day." Yesterday there was nothing but clouds and thick gloom; but now we had not ridden far before H. sprang suddenly, as if she had lost her senses - her cheeks flushed, and her eye flashing. I was frightened. "There," said she, pointing out of the side of the carriage across the lake, "there he is - there's Mont Blanc." "Pooh," said I, "no such thing." And some trees for a moment intervened, and shut out the view. Presently the trees opened, and H. cried, "There, that _white_; don't you see? - there - there!" pointing with great energy, as if she were getting ready to fly. I looked and saw, sure enough, behind the dark mass of the Mole, (a huge blue-black mountain in the foreground,) the granite ranges rising gradually and grim as we rode; but, further still, behind those gray and ghastly barriers, all bathed and blazing in the sun's fresh splendors, undimmed by a cloud, unveiled even by a filmy fleece of vapor, and oh, so white - so intensely, blindingly white! against the dark-blue sky, the needles, the spires, the solemn pyramid, the transfiguration cone of Mont Blanc. Higher, and still higher, those apocalyptic splendors seemed lifting their spectral, spiritual forms, seeming to rise as we rose, seeming to start like giants hidden from behind the black brow of intervening ranges, opening wider the amphitheatre of glory, until, as we reached the highest point in our road, the whole unearthly vision stood revealed in sublime perspective. The language of the Revelation came rushing through my soul. This is, as it were, a door opened in heaven. Here are some of those everlasting mountain ranges, whose light is not of the sun, nor of the moon, but of the Lord God and of the Lamb.

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