It is not wise to visit what are called the High Alps first and then
make the tour of the Swiss cities. This order should be reversed. From
loveliness we should ascend to grandeur, and not come down from Engadine
heights, and space and air, to cities, pretty lakes, purplish hills, and
white peaks in the background. If we were to see Switzerland again for
the first time--isn't this a tolerably good Irishism?--and knew as much
about it as we do now,--which doesn't by any means imply that we
couldn't easily know more,--we would certainly not do as we have done,
especially if, as at present, we were expected to chronicle our
emotions. The fact is, when you come down from the heights there is a
palpable ebb in your impressions. How can it be otherwise? You glide in
well-oiled grooves over the regular routes of travel. You see what you
have seen in pictures and read of in books all your life. It is
perfectly familiar, and how can you have the audacity to be very diffuse
about it? Experiences in well-conducted hotels are not so suggestive as
in the rougher mountain life. It is all very comfortable, very lovely.
Strange--is it not?--that there come moments when one tires of the
comfort and is impatient with the loveliness, and longs for something
different,--for grand heights, even if the rocks towering to the skies
are fierce and cruel looking; for the depth of the gloomy ravines; for
the loneliness and cold of the gray, barren peaks; for the sense of
space, immensity, even when harshness goes with it!
We have, then, left the High Alps. We are now in the region of fine
hotels, brilliantly lighted rooms, flirtations on the piazza, and long
trains. We go where all the world goes, see what all the world sees,
fare sumptuously every day, and, whether we are arrayed in purple and
fine linen or not, at least we see other people so clothed upon.
Zurich, the busy, flourishing, learned Swiss town on its pretty lake, we
have just left, with its two rivers running up through the heart of it;
with its bridges and its pleasure-boats; the villages and orchards and
vineyards on the fertile banks of the lake as far as the eye can reach;
the lovely views of the Alps,--the perpendicular Reisettstock; the
Drusberg, "like a winding staircase"; the Kammlisstock; great horns in
the Rorstock chain; the pyramidal Bristenstock, which is on the St.
Gothard route; and many, many others, if the day be clear. Beautiful
views of land and lake you can get from different points here. It
certainly could have been nothing less than lack of amiability or lack
of taste that made us dissatisfied. Had we seen it first, we might have
been beside ourselves with delight. "Yes, it is very beautiful," we say,
quite calmly, and it is; but--
Zurich was in short, to us, agreeable, but not fascinating. We liked it,
but left it without a regret. Our emotions were not largely called into
play by anything. Perhaps our liveliest sensation was occasioned by the
discovery that at that excellent hotel, the Baur au Lac, we were
formally requested to fee no one, a reasonable amount for service being
charged daily in the bill. This was a relief indeed. Often one would
gladly pay double the sum he gives in fees merely to escape the hungry
eyes and ever-ready palms. Another sensation was seeing Count Arnim. He
is quite gray, and looks delicate.
The people in the hotels are often a source of amusement to us. We
consider them fair game, when they are very comical, because--who
knows?--perhaps we also are amusing to them. Some faces, however, look
too bored and miserable to be amused by anything. It is very inelegant
never to be bored,--to like so many different people, ways, thoughts,
things. We often feel mortified that we are so much amused, but the
fault is ineradicable.
There is an Englishwoman of rank, whom we have met recently in our
wanderings,--exactly where I dare not tell. She comes every day to
_table d'hote_ with a new bonnet, and each bonnet is more marvellously
self-assertive than its predecessor. She bears a well-known name. She is
my Lady E----ton; but if she were only Mrs. Stubbs from Vermont, I
should say she had more bonnets, more impudence, and more vulgar
curiosity than any woman I had ever seen. She seized the small boy of
our party in her clutches at dinner, where an unlucky chance placed him
by her side, and questioned him minutely and mercilessly during the six
courses. Who was his father? Who was his mother? Had he a sister? Had he
a brother? What did his father _do_? Where did he live, and how? Where
did we come from? Where were we going? How long were we going to stay?
And what were all our names? Was the young lady engaged to be married to
the young man? How old was the child's mamma? How old were we all? And
so on _ad infinitum_. The boy, though old enough to feel indignant, was
not old enough to know how to escape, and so helplessly, with painful
accuracy, answered her questions; but on the very delicate point of age
we were providentially protected by a childish, honest "I don't know."
Some of us who are more worldly-wise and wicked than the little victim
heartily regretted fate had not given us instead of him to our lady of
the bonnets. It would have been so delicious to make her ribbons flutter
with amazement at the astonishing tales told by us in reply! Certainly,
under such circumstances, it is legitimate to call in a little
imagination to one's aid.
Our cousins, the English, whom we meet on the Continent, are very much
like the little girl of the nursery-rhyme,--when they are good they are
"awfully good," and when they are bad they are "horrid." (No one is more
truly kind, refined, and charming than an agreeable Englishman or
Englishwoman; no one more utterly absurd than a disagreeable one.)
Possibly this impresses us the more strongly on account of the
cousinship. Aren't our own unpleasant relatives invariably a thousand
times more odious to us than other people's?
I saw a pantomime the other day which, though brief, was full of
meaning. A German lady and gentleman, quiet-looking, well-bred people,
were walking through a long hotel corridor. The gentleman stepped
forward in order to open the door of the _salon_ for the lady. From
another door emerges an Englishman with an unattractive face and dull,
pompous manner. He is also _en route_ for the _salon_, and, not noticing
the lady, steps between the two. The German throws open the door and
waits. The burly Englishman, solemn but gratified, accepting the
supposed courtesy as a perfectly fitting tribute from that inferior
being, a foreigner, to himself and the great English nation, pauses and
makes in acknowledgment a profound bow, which, being utterly superfluous
and unexpected, strikes the lady coming along rapidly to pass through
the doorway, and, naturally imagining the second gentleman, too, was
waiting for her, literally and with force _strikes_ her and nearly
annihilates her. The Englishman turns in utter wonder and gazes at the
lady. The three gaze at one another. Everybody says, "I beg your
pardon." The Englishman, as the facts dawn upon his comprehension, has
the grace to turn very red, but has not the grace to laugh, which would
be the only sensible thing to do,--too sensible, apparently, for a man
who goes about thinking strange gentlemen will delight in smoothing his
path and opening doors for him. Of course, he ought to have known
instinctively, there was a lady in the case, as there always is. The two
Germans were too polite to laugh unless he would. But he did not even
smile, which proclaimed his stupidity more clearly than all which had
gone before; and presently three very constrained faces--one red and
sullen, two with dancing eyes and lips half bitten through--appeared in
the _salon_, which, this time, the lady entered first. It isn't so very
funny to tell, but the scene was so funny to witness, it really seemed a
privilege to be the solitary spectator.
From Zurich on to Lucerne, with pretty pictures all the way from the car
windows. We anticipated feeling romantic here, but so far all we know is
that Lucerne looks very drab. It rains in torrents, a hopeless, heavy
flood. The lake does not smile at us, or dimple or ripple, as we have
read it is in the habit of doing. The mountains we ought to be seeing
don't appear. The streets are shockingly muddy. We cannot go to see the
Lion; and as to the Rigi, upon which our hopes are set, there is small
chance that it will at present emerge from its clouds, and allow us to
behold from the Kulm the wonderful sunrise and sunset which many go out
for to see, but most, alas! in vain.
Great Pilatus tells us to hope for nothing. He is the barometer of the
region. He is very big and rugged and inspiring, and stands haughtily
apart from the other heights:--
"Overhead,
Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,
Rises Pilatus with his windy pines."
A popular rhyme runs to the effect that when Pilatus wears his cap only,
the day will be fair; when he puts on his collar, you may yet venture;
but if he wears his sword, you'd better stay at home. To-day he wears
cap, collar, sword,--in fact, is clothed with clouds, except for a
moment now and then, to his very feet. There are many old legends about
Pilatus and its caverns. One of the oldest is, that Pontius Pilate,
banished from Galilee, fled here, and in anguish and remorse threw
himself into the lake; hence the name of which the more matter-of-fact
explanation is _Mons Pileatus_, or "capped mountain." If there were
sunshine, we would believe the latter simple and reasonable definition.
Now, in this dreary rain, we take a gloomy satisfaction in the dark tale
of remorse,--the darker, more desperate and tragic it is made, the
better we like it.
Pilatus and the skies and wind and barometer, and fate itself,
apparently, are against us. But the Rigi is still there. Behind the
cloud is the sun still shining,--patience is genius, and--we wait.