Our hearts are breaking now
Those mansions fair to see:
O Lord, thy heavens bow,
And raise us up with thee
To the New Jerusalem."
The echoes of our voices died along the mountain sides, as slowly we
wended our downward way. 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. We bent to the
oar in emulous contest, and our barks foamed and hissed through the
water. In a few moments we were passing through the noisy crowd on the
quay towards our quiet home.
LETTER XXXII.
DEAR CHILDREN: -
I promised to write from Chamouni, so to commence at the commencement.
Fancy me, on a broiling day in July, panting with the heat, gazing
from my window in Geneva upon Lake Leman, which reflects the sun like
a burning glass, and thinking whether in America, or any where else,
it was ever so hot before. This was quite a new view of the subject to
me, who had been warned in Paris only of the necessity of blanket
shawls, and had come to Switzerland with my head full of glaciers, and
my trunk full of furs.
While arranging my travelling preparations, Madame F. enters.
"Have you considered how cold it is up there?" she inquires.
"I am glad if it is cold any where," said I.
"Ah, you will find it dreadful; you will need to be thoroughly
guarded."
I suggested tippets, flannels, and furs, of which I already possessed
a moderate supply. But no; these were altogether insufficient. It was
necessary that I should buy two immense fur coats; one for C., and one
for myself.
I assure you that such preparations, made with the thermometer between
eighty and ninety, impress one with a kind of awe. "What regions must
they be," thought I to myself, "thus sealed up in eternal snows, while
the country at their feet lies scorching in the very fire!" A shadow
of incredulity mingled itself with my reflections. On the whole, I
bought but _one_ fur coat.
At this moment C. came up to tell me that W., S., and G. had all come
back from Italy, so that our party was once more together.
It was on the 5th of July that S. and I took our seats in the _coupe_
of the diligence. Now, this _coupe_ is low and narrow enough, so that
our condition reminded me slightly of the luckless fowls which I have
sometimes seen riding to the Cincinnati market in _coupes_ of about
equal convenience. Nevertheless, it might be considered a peaceable
and satisfactory style of accommodation in an ordinary country. But to
ride among the wonders of the Alps in such a vehicle is something like
contemplating infinity through the nose of a bottle. It was really very
tantalizing and provoking to me till C. was so obliging as to resign his
seat on top in my favor, and descend into _Sheol_, as he said. Then I
began to live; for I could see to the summit of the immense walls of rock
under which we were passing.
