Some Of Our Party Would Not Buy Of Them,
Because They Said They Were Sharpers, Trying To Get All They Could Out
Of People; But If Every Body Who Tries To Do This Is To Be Called A
Sharper, What Is To Become Of Respectable Society, I Wonder?
On the strength of this reflection, I bought some more goat's milk and
strawberries, and verily found them excellent; for, as Shakspeare
says, "How many things by season seasoned are."
We returned to our hotel, and after dining and taking a long nap, I
began to feel fresh once more, for the air here acts like an elixir,
so that one is able to do twice as much as any where else. S. was too
much overcome to go with us, but the rest of us started with our
guides once more at five o'clock. This time we were to visit the
Cascade des Pelerins, which comes next on the orthodox list of places
to be seen.
It was a lovely afternoon; the sun had got over the Mont Blanc side of
the world, and threw the broad, cool shadow of the mountains quite
across the valley. What a curious kind of thing shadow is, - that
invisible veil, falling so evenly and so lightly over all things,
bringing with it such thoughts of calmness, of coolness, and of rest.
I wonder the old Greeks did not build temples to Shadow, and call her
the sister of Thought and Peace. The Hebrew writers speak of the
"overshadowing of the Almighty;" they call his protection "the shadow
of a great rock in a weary land." Even as the shadow of Mont Blanc
falls like a Sabbath across this valley, so falls the sense of his
presence across our weary life-road!
As we rode along under the sides of the mountain every thing seemed so
beautiful, so thoughtful, and so calm! All the goats and cows were in
motion along the mountain paths, each one tinkling his little bell and
filling the rocks with gentle melodies. You can trace the lines of
these cattle paths, running like threads all along the sides of the
mountains. We went in the same road that we had gone in the morning.
How different it seemed, in the soberness of this afternoon light,
from its aspect under the clear, crisp, sharp light of morning!
We pass again through the pine woods in the valley, and cross the
Arve; then up the mountain side to where a tiny cascade throws up its
feathery spray in a brilliant _jet d'eau_. Every body knows, even
in our sober New England, that mountain brooks are a frisky,
indiscreet set, rattling, chattering, and capering in defiance of all
law and order, tumbling over precipices, and picking themselves up at
the bottom, no whit wiser or more disposed to be tranquil than they
were at the top; in fact, seeming to grow more mad and frolicsome with
every leap. Well, that is just the way brooks do here in the Alps, and
the people, taking advantage of it, have built a little shanty, where
they show up the capers of this child of the mountain, as if he
tumbled for their special profit.
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