At Every Concussion
He Jumped And Kicked, But Kept His Nose In The Same Relative Position.
I Redoubled The Logical Admonition; He Jumped The More Perceptibly;
Finally, After An Unusually Affecting Appeal From A Piece Of Granite,
He Fairly Budged, And I Seized The Bridle To Mount.
"Not at all," said he, wheeling round to his first position, like a
true proslavery demagogue.
"Ah," said I; and went over the same line of argument in a more solid
and convincing manner. At length the salutary impression seemed
permanently fastened on his mind; he fairly gave in; and I rode on in
triumph to overtake the party - having no need of a fur coat.
Horeb, Sinai, and Hor! What a wilderness! what a sudden change!
Nothing but savage, awful precipices of naked granite, snowy fields,
and verdureless wastes! In every other place in the Alps, we have
looked upon the snow in the remote distance, to be dazzled with its
sheeny effulgence - ourselves, meanwhile, in the region of verdure and
warmth. Here we march through a horrid desert - not a leaf, not a blade
of grass - over the deep drifts of snow; and we find our admiration
turns to horror. And this is the road that Hannibal trod, and
Charlemagne, and Napoleon! They were fit conquerors of Rome, who could
vanquish the sterner despotism of eternal winter.
After an hour's perilous climbing, we reached, at last, the
_hospice_, and in five minutes were sitting at the supper table,
by a good blazing fire, with a lively company, chatting with a
gentlemanly abbe, discussing figs and fun, cracking filberts and
jokes, and regaling ourselves genially.
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