I am confident that I have written the following note in one or other of
the earlier of these volumes, but I have searched my precious indexes in
vain to find it. No doubt as soon as I have retold the story I shall
stumble upon it.
One day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from Airolo, returning
the same day. At Piora I met a very nice quiet man whose name I
presently discovered, and who, I have since learned, is a well-known and
most liberal employer of labour somewhere in the north of England. He
told me that he had been induced to visit Piora by a book which had made
a great impression upon him. He could not recollect its title, but it
had made a great impression upon him; nor yet could he recollect the
author’s name, but the book had made a great impression upon him; he
could not remember even what else there was in the book; the only thing
he knew was that it had made a great impression upon him.
This is a good example of what is called a residuary impression. Whether
or no I told him that the book which had made such a great impression
upon him was called _Alps and Sanctuaries_ (see Chap. VI), and that it
had been written by the person he was addressing, I cannot tell. It
would be very like me to have blurted it all out and given him to
understand how fortunate he had been in meeting me; this would be so
fatally like me that the chances are ten to one that I did it; but I
have, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in this respect, and have
rather a strong impression that, for once in my life, I smiled to myself
and said nothing.