The rosy flush began to fade. A rich creamy
or orange hue seemed to imbue the scene, and finally, as the shadows
from the Jura crept higher, and covered it with a pall, it assumed a
startling, deathlike pallor of chalky white. Mont Blanc was dead. Mont
Blanc was walking as a ghost upon the granite ranges. But as darkness
came on, and as the sky over the Jura, where the sun had set, obtained
a deep, rosy tinge, Mont Blanc revived a little, and a flush of
delicate, transparent pink tinged his cone, and Mont Blanc was asleep.
Good night to Mont Blanc.
Wednesday morning, June 29. The day is intensely hot; the weather is
exceedingly fair, but Mont Blanc is not visible. Not a vestige - not a
trace. All vanished. It does not seem possible. There do not seem to
exist the conditions for such celestial pageant to have stood there.
What! there - where my eyes now look steadily and piercingly into the
blue, into the seemingly fathomless azure - there, will they tell me, I
saw that enraptured vision, as it were, the city descending from God
out of heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband? Incredible! It must
be a dream, a vision of the night.
Evening. After the heat of the day our whole household, old and young,
set forth for a boating excursion on the lake. Dividing our party in
two boats, we pulled about a mile up the left shore. Lake Leman was
before us in all its loveliness; and we were dipping our oar where
Byron had floated past scenes which scarce need to become classic to
possess a superior charm. The sun was just gone behind the Jura,
leaving a glorious sky. Mont Blanc stood afar behind a hazy veil, like
a spirit half revealed. We saw it pass before our eyes as we moved.
"It stood still, but we could not discern the form thereof." As we
glided on past boats uncounted, winged or many-footed, motionless or
still, we softly sung, -
"Think of me oft at twilight hour,
And I will think of thee;
Remembering how we felt its power
When thou wast still with me.
Dear is that hour, for day then sleeps
Upon the gray cloud's breast;
And not a voice or sound e'er keeps
His wearied eyes from rest."
The surface of the lake was unruffled. The air was still. An
occasional burst from the band in the garden of Rousseau came softened
in the distance. Enveloped in her thick shawl H. reclined in the
stern, and gave herself to the influences of the hour.
Darkness came down upon the deep. And in the gloom we turned our prows
towards the many-twinkling quays, far in the distance.
