She Gets On A Pyramid Of _Debris_, Which The Edge Of The
Glacier Is Ploughing And Grinding Up, Sits Down, And Falls - Not Asleep
Exactly - But Into A Trance.
W. and I are ready to go on; we shout; our
voice is lost in the roar of the torrent.
We send the guide. He goes
down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly what to do.
She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one hand to yonder
peak, and with the other to that knifelike edge, that seems cleaving
heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow, reminding one of
Isaiah's sublime imagery, "For my sword is bathed in heaven." She
points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear points. Evidently
she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember the names of those
monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which cannot be named nor
known but by sight, and then are known at once, perfectly and forever.
Mountains are Nature's testimonials of anguish. They are the sharp cry
of a groaning and travailing creation. Nature's stern agony writes
itself on these furrowed brows of gloomy stone. These reft and
splintered crags stand, the dreary images of patient sorrow, existing
verdureless and stern because exist they must. In them hearts that
have ceased to rejoice, and have learned to suffer, find kindred, and
here, an earth worn with countless cycles of sorrow, utters to the
stars voices of speechless despair.
And all this time no dinner! All this time H. is at the glacier! How
do I know but she has fallen into a _crevasse_? How do I know but
that a cliff, one of those ice castles, those leaning turrets, those
frosty spearmen, have toppled over upon her? I shudder at the
reflection. I will write no more.
I had just written thus far, when in came H. and W. in high feather.
O, I had lost the greatest sight in Switzerland! There was such a
chasm, a mountain cut in twain, with a bridge, and a man to throw a
stone down; and you could hear it go _boom_, and _he held his
hat!_ "Not a doubt of that," said I. Then there was a cavern in the
ice, and the ice was so green, and the water dripped from the roof,
and a great river rushed out. Such was the substance of their united
enthusiasm.
But, alas! it was not enough to lose the best glacier in Switzerland;
I must needs lose two cascades and a chamois. Just before coming to
Meyringen, I was composedly riding down a species of stone gridiron,
set up sidewise, called a road, when the guide overtook me, and
requested me to walk, as the road was bad. Stupid fellow! he said not
a word about cascades and chamois, and so I went down like a chamois
myself, taking the road that seemed best and nearest, and reached the
inn an hour before the rest. After waiting till I became alarmed, and
was just sending back a messenger to inquire, lo, in they came, and
began to tell me of cascades and chamois.
"What cascade? What chamois? I have not seen any!" And then what a
burst! "Not seen any! What, two cascades, one glacier, and a
four-year-old chamois, lost in one day! What will become of you? Is
this the way you make the tour of Switzerland?"
Saturday, July 23. Rode in a _voiture_ from Meyringen to Brienz,
on the opposite end of the lake from Interlachen. Embarked in a
rowboat of four immense oars tied by withs. Two men and one woman
pulled three, and W. and I took turns at the fourth. The boat being
high built, flat bottomed, with awning and flagstaff, rolled and
tipped so easily that soon H., with remorseful visage, abandoned her
attempt to write, and lay down. There is a fresh and savage beauty
about this lake, which can only be realized by rowing across.
Interlachen is underrated in the guide books. It has points of
unrivalled loveliness; the ruins of the old church of Rinconberg, for
example, commanding a fine view of both lakes, of the country between,
and the Alps around, while just at your feet is a little lake in a
basin, some two hundred feet above the other lakes. Then, too, from
your window in the Belvedere, you gaze upon the purity of the
Jungfrau. The church, too, where on Sabbath we attended Episcopal
service, is embowered in foliage, and seems like some New England
village meeting house.
Monday, July 25. Adieu to Interlachen! Ho for Lucerne and the Righi!
Dined at Thun in a thunder storm. Stopped over night at Langnau, an
out-of-the-way place. H. and G. painted Alpine flowers, while I played
violin. This violin must be of spotless pedigree, even as our Genevese
friend, Monsieur - , certified when he reluctantly sold it me. None
but a genuine AMATI, a hundred years old, can possess this mysterious
quality, that can breathe almost inaudible, like a mornbeam in the
parlor, or predominate imperious and intense over orchestra and choir,
illuminating with its fire, like chain lightning, the arches of a vast
cathedral. Enchanted thing - what nameless spirit impregnates with
magnetic ether the fine fibres of thy mechanism!
Tuesday, 26. Rode from Langnan to Lucerne just in time to take the
boat for Weggis. From the door of the Hotel de la Concorde, at Weggis,
the guide _chef_ fitted us out with two _chaises a porteur_,
six _carriers_, two mules with grooms, making a party of fourteen
in all.
After ascending a while the scenery became singularly wild and
beautiful. Vast walls and cliffs of conglomerate rose above us, up
which our path wound in zigzags. Below us were pines, vales, fields,
and hills, themselves large enough for mountains. There, at our feet,
with its beautiful islands, bays, capes, and headlands, gleams the
broad lake of the four cantons, consecrated by the muse of Schiller
and the heroism of Tell.
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