+---------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| THE SPELL SERIES |
| |
| |
| _Each volume with many illustrations from original |
| drawings or special photographs. Octavo, with |
| decorative cover, gilt top, boxed._ |
| |
| _Per volume $2.50 net, postpaid $2.70_ |
| |
| THE SPELL OF ITALY |
| By Caroline Atwater Mason |
| |
| THE SPELL OF FRANCE |
| By Caroline Atwater Mason |
| |
| THE SPELL OF ENGLAND |
| By Julia de W. Addison |
| |
| THE SPELL OF HOLLAND |
| By Burton E. Stevenson |
| |
| THE SPELL OF SWITZERLAND |
| By Nathan Haskell Dole |
| |
| THE SPELL OF THE ITALIAN LAKES |
| By William D. McCrackan |
| |
| _In Preparation_ |
| |
| THE SPELL OF THE RHINE |
| By Frank Roy Fraprie |
| |
| L. C. PAGE & COMPANY |
| 53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
[Illustration: _Evening near Saas-Fee_ [_See page 369_]]
_The_ Spell _of_ Switzerland
_BY_
_Nathan Haskell Dole_
ILLUSTRATED
from photographs and original paintings by
_Woldemar Ritter_
_Publishers_
=L. C. PAGE & COMPANY=
BOSTON MDCCCCXIII
_Copyright, 1913, by_
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
_All rights reserved_
First Impression, October, 1913
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
PREFACE
The present book is cast in the guise of fiction. The vague and
flitting forms of my niece and her three children are wholly figments
of the imagination. No such person as “Will Allerton” enters my
doorway. The “Moto,” which does such magical service in transporting
“Emile” and his admirers from place to place is as unreal as Solomon’s
Carpet.
After Lord Sheffield and his family had started back from a visit to
Gibbon at Lausanne, his daughter, Maria T. Holroyd, wrote the
historian: “I do not know what strange charm there is in Switzerland
that makes everybody desirous of returning there.” It is the aim of
this book to express that charm. It lies not merely in heaped-up
masses of mountains, in wonderfully beautiful lakes, in mysterious
glaciers, in rainbow-adorned waterfalls; it is largely due to the
association with human beings.
The spell of Switzerland can be best expressed not in the limited
observations of a single person but rather by a concensus of
descriptions. The casual traveller plans, perhaps, to ascend the
Matterhorn or Mount Pilatus; but day after day may prove unpropitious;
clouds and storms are the enemy of vision. One must therefore take the
word of those more fortunate. Poets and other keen-eyed observers help
to intensify the spell. These few words will explain the author’s
plan. It is purposely desultory; it is not meant for a guide-book; it
is not intended to be taken as a perfectly balanced treatise covering
the history in part or in whole of the twenty-four cantons; it has
biographical episodes but they are merely hints at the richness of
possibilities, and if Gibbon and Tissot and Rousseau stand forth
prominently, it is not because Voltaire, Juste Olivier, Hebel, Töpfer,
Amiel, Frau Spyri, and a dozen others are not just as worthy of
selection. One might write a quarto volume on the charms of the Lake
of Constance or the Lake of Zürich or the Lake of Lucerne. Scores of
castles teem with historic and romantic associations. It is all a
matter of selection, a matter of taste. It is not for the author to
claim that he has succeeded in conveying his ideas, but whatever
effect his work may produce on the reader, he, himself, may, without
boasting, claim that he is completely under the spell of Switzerland.
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.
BOSTON, October 1, 1913.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PREFACE
I. UNCLE AND NIECE
II. JUST A COMMON VOYAGE
III. A ROUNDABOUT TOUR
IV. HOME AT LAUSANNE
V. GIBBON AT LAUSANNE
VI. AROUND THE LAKE LEMAN
VII. A DIGRESSION AT CHILLON
VIII. LORD BYRON AND THE LAKE
IX. A PRINCESS AND THE SPELL OF THE LAKE
X. THE ALPS AND THE JURA
XI. THE SOUTHERN SHORE
XII. GENEVA
XIII. SUNRISE AND ROUSSEAU
XIV. THE CITY OF ROUSSEAU AND CALVIN
XV. FAMOUS FOLK
XVI. THE ASCENT OF THE DÔLE
XVII. A FORMER WORKER OF SPELLS
XVIII. TO CHAMONIX
XIX. A DETOUR TO ZERMATT
XX. THE VALE OF CHAMONIX
XXI. HANNIBAL IN SWITZERLAND
XXII. ZÜRICH
XXIII. AT ZÜRICH WITH THE PROFESSOR
XXIV. ON THE SHORES OF LAKE LUCERNE
XXV. LAUSANNE AGAIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
EVENING NEAR SAAS-FEE (_in full colour_)
MAP OF SWITZERLAND
IN THE ENGADINE VALLEY (_in full colour_)
THE ALPENGLOW ON THE JUNGFRAU
A WINTERTHUR STOVE
A SWISS CHÂTEAU
THE CATHEDRAL, LAUSANNE
LAUSANNE AND THE SAVOY MOUNTAINS
LA DENT DU MIDI FROM MONTREUX
LAKE LEMAN AT VEVEY
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON
THE PRISON OF BONIVARD IN THE CASTLE OF CHILLON
MONT BLANC
THE CASTLE OF CHÂTELARD AND THE SAVOY ALPS
ALPINE HERDSMEN
THE LIVING-ROOM OF AN ALPINE CASTLE (_in full colour_)
THE WATERFRONT AND THE ILE ROUSSEAU, GENEVA
SWISS MEDIAEVAL CARVINGS
LES GRANDES JORASSES
ACROSS LAKE LEMAN
FRIBOURG
BARKS ON LAKE LEMAN
ALONG THE SHORE OF LAKE LEMAN
THE SAVOY ALPS FROM THE NORTH SHORE OF LAKE LEMAN
“ALL THE MIGHTY VALLEYS OF THE ALPS WERE FILLING WITH MISTS”
MONT BLANC AND THE VALLEY OF CHAMONIX
THE VALLEY OF THE RHÔNE AT MARTIGNY
PISSEVACHE CASCADE
LE MONT CERVIN
MONTE ROSA
THE NEEDLE OF THE MATTERHORN
ON THE GLACIER
“JAGGED NEEDLES AND PINNACLES OF CRUEL ROCK”
“THE SNOW WAS DEEP ON THE MOUNTAINS”
THE HOSPICE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD
THE CASTLE OF NEUCHÂTEL
AN OLD STREET IN BERN
A RAINY DAY IN ZÜRICH
THE URNER LOCH
THE KINZIG PASS
THE KLÖNTALERSEE
THE FALLS OF THE RHINE
THE FRAUMÜNSTER
THE QUAINT STATUE OF CHARLEMAGNE
RAPPERSWYL
SERTIZ DÖRFLI (_in full colour_)
LUCERNE AND MOUNT PILATUS
ON THE LAKE OF LUCERNE
“THE MUSIC OF THE COWS’ BELLS”
THE STAUBBACH
A STREET IN THUN
CHÂTEAU VOLTAIRE, FERNEY
WRESTLING AT A VILLAGE FESTIVAL
[Illustration: SWITZERLAND]
THE SPELL OF SWITZERLAND
CHAPTER I
UNCLE AND NIECE
I must confess, I did not approve of my niece and her husband’s plan
of expatriating themselves for the sake of giving their only son and
heir, and their twin girls, a correct accent in speaking French. But I
had the grace to hold my tongue. I wonder if my wife would have been
equally discreet--supposing I possessed such a helpmeet. Probably she
would not have done so, even if I had; and probably also I should not,
if she had. For the very fact of my having a wife would prove that I
should be different from what I am.
There is an implication in this slight exhibition of boastfulness; but
it is not subtle. Any one would see it instantly--namely, that I am a
bachelor. A bachelor uncle whose niece takes it into her head to marry
and raise a family, is as deeply bereaved as he would be were he her
father. More so, indeed, for a father has his wife left to him....
The relationship between uncle and niece has never been sufficiently
celebrated in poetry. It deserves to be sung. Besides the high, noble
friendship which it implies, there is also about it a touch of almost
lover-like sentiment. The right-hearted uncle loves to lavish all
kinds of luxuries on his niece and feels sufficiently repaid by the
look of frank affection in her eyes, the unabashed kiss which is the
envy of young men who happen to witness it.
Here are the facts in my case. After my brother’s wife died, he urged
me to make my home at his house. I suppose I might have done so long
before; but I had been afraid of my sister-in-law. She was a tall
imperious woman; she did not approve of me at all. She could not see
my jokes, or, if she did, she frowned on them. I suppose she thought
me frivolous. She was one of those women who make you appear at your
worst. She was sincere and genuine and good, but our wireless
apparatus was not tuned in harmony. As long as she was at the helm of
my brother’s establishment I preferred to enjoy less comfortable
quarters elsewhere.
But when, as the Wordsworth line has it, “Ruth was left half desolate”
(though her father did not “take another mate”), and they showed me
how delightfully I could dispose of my library and have an open fire
on cold winter evenings, and what a perfect position was, as it were,
destined for my baby grand--for I am devoted to music--_en amateur_,
of course,--I yielded, and for ten happy years, saw Ruth grow from a
young girl into the woman “nobly planned, to warn, to comfort and
command.”
Command? What woman does not?
At my advice she took up the violin, and I shall never forget the
hours and hours when we practised and really played mighty well--if I
do say it, who shouldn’t--through the whole range of duets, beginning
with simple pieces for her immature fingers and ending with the
strange and sometimes--to me--incomprehensible fantaisies of the
super-modernists.
But all these simple home-joys came to their inevitable end. The right
man appeared and did as the right men always have done and will do.
Uncles are as prone to jealousy as any other class of bipeds; but
here again the philosophy of life which I trust I have made evident I
cherish, and which, as one good turn deserves another, cherishes me,
enabled me to preserve a front of discreet neutrality. I may have been
over-zealous to look up the young man’s record; but there was nothing
to which the most scrupulous could take exception. He was a clean,
straight, manly youth with excellent prospects.
Will Allerton lived in Chicago; that was a second count against him,
but equally futile as a valid argument for dissuasion. After their
wedding-journey, they went to a delightful little house in East Elm
Street in Chicago. Business called me to that city two or three times,
and I visited them. So many of my friends had been unhappily
married that I was more or less pessimistic about that kind of
life-partnership; but my niece’s happy home was an excellent cure for
my bachelor cynicism. The coming of their first child,--they did me
the honour of making me his godfather, though I do not much believe in
such formalities; and they also named him for me,--the coming of this
little mortal made no change other than a decided increase in the
bliss of that loving home.
When little Lawrence was four years old, and the twins were two, his
grandfather died suddenly. It was a tremendous change to have my good
brother removed from my side. My niece and her husband came on from
Chicago. They were pathetically solicitous for my welfare. Most
insistently they urged me to come and live with them. There was plenty
of room in the house, they said.
I was greatly touched by their generous kindness, but I set my face
sternly against any uprooting of the sort. I said I much preferred to
stay on where I was. I had consulted with my Lares and Penates and
found that they opposed any such _bouleversement_. The old housekeeper
who had looked after our comfort was still capable of doing all that
was necessary for me. My wants were few; I lived the simple life and
its cares and pleasures amply satisfied my ambition. I had a small
circle of congenial friends, particularly among my books. I did not
know what it meant to be lonely. If I needed company, I could always
fortify myself with the presence of college classmates. I had
organized a quartet of fairly capable musicians who came once or twice
a week to play chamber-music with me, and for me. I had several
protégés studying music at the conservatory and my Sunday afternoon
musicales were a factor in my satisfaction. So it was arranged that I
should make no radical change for the present, at least. I would spend
my vacations with them at the seashore, where we had a comfortable
little _datcha_, and at least once during the winter I would make them
a visit in Chicago.
Thus passed two more years. Then out of a clear sky came the report
that my niece and her husband were going to take their young hopeful
and his sisters to Switzerland, so that he might learn to speak French
with a perfect accent! Will had a rich old aunt--a queer, misanthropic
personage, who lived the life of a hermit. She, too, took the long
journey into the Unknown and, as she could not carry her possessions
with her, they fell to her nephew.
I saw them off, and the last word my niece said, as we parted
tenderly, was, “You must run over and make us a visit.”
I shook my head: “I am afflicted with a fatal illness. I am afraid of
the voyage.”
Her sweet face expressed such concern that I quickly added: “It is
nothing serious; but there is no hope for it--it is only old age.”
“That’s just like you,” she exclaimed, “and I know you do not dread
the ocean.”
“Well, we’ll see,” I tergiversated. “I don’t believe you’ll stay.
You’ll miss all the American conveniences and you’ll get so tired of
hearing nothing but French.”
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “Of course we shall stay, and of course
you’ll come.”