SUNRISE AND ROUSSEAU
The weather showed unusual good humour by clearing in the night.
Geneva woke up to bright sparkling sunshine. I went out before
breakfast, indeed before sunrise, on the bridge, and had a most
glorious view up the lake and up to the very summit of Mont Blanc.
White as sugar, it lifted its aerial head into the azure--a solid
cloud which looked as if it might at any moment take wings and fly
away. A well-informed policeman told me the names of the other peaks:
L’Aiguille du Midi, nearly a thousand meters lower than the crowning
height: La Dent du Géant; Les Grandes Jorasses (from that same word,
_joux_, meaning rock); Les Aiguilles Rouges; La Mole, contrasting with
the sharp peak of the Aiguille d’Argentière, rightly suggesting
silver. If any one is satisfied with a distant prospect of mountains,
his eye would never weary of that glorious sight; but there is an
attractive power in the great mountain-masses. They beckon, they
say:--“Come to us; we want you; you are ours.”
[Illustration: LES GRANDES JORASSES.]
That is, however, a wholly modern conception. If in the old days human
consciousness felt the call, heard the summons, it was with the horror
with which a bird feels the impulse to fly into the serpent’s jaws.
Not so many years ago the popular imagination filled the ravines of
the higher mountains with other terrors besides the frost. Dragons
haunted caverns; with bated breath men told of having seen the dance
of Wotan on the Diablerets, or of having heard fiends playing
nine-pins with great stones which, when they missed their mark, went
dashing and crashing down into the valleys. What herdsman would dare
approach the Grotte de Balme, that cavern, hollowed out in the
limestone rock, where dark-skinned fairies, with no heels to their
feet, but with long, rippling hair, lured young men to their
destruction! There was the spectral ram of Monthey; there was the
three-legged horse of Sion; there was the giant ox of Zauchet, with
glowing horns and flaming torch of a tail; there was the blue-haired
donkey of Zermatt. Down from the mountains to Neuchâtel there used to
come a ghost, wearing a cloth dripping with blood, and vanishing
toward the lake. It was that of the widow of Walther, Comte de
Rochefort, publicly accused of forgery and beheaded in 1412. The sight
of her presaged a conflagration.
The Lord of Grimmelstein killed a doe and her fawns and was condemned
to hunt through the mountains--one of those famous Wild Hunts which
are accompanied by terrible tempests, and overwhelming snows.
There was a herd of chamois tended by dwarfs. Woe to those hunters who
killed too many!
As in Schiller’s poem, the gazelle climbs to the ruggedest top of the
naked precipice with the huntsman close behind and, just as he is
about to fit the arrow to the string, the ancient Spirit of the
Mountain, the good Genius of the trembling creature, appears to
him:--“Earth has room for all to dwell--Why chase my belov’d gazelle?”
At the entrance of the Rhône into the lake there used to be low banks
and wandering islands. Here dwelt the nixies and their queen, Finetta
of the White Hand. She wore lilies in her golden hair. Any one who saw
her was sure to die within a year.
That most delightful and poetic and enthusiastic of mountain-climbers,
Emile Javelle, made friends with the guides and herdsmen, and was for
ever eliciting from them avowals of their belief in spirits and
dragons. He says that any night passed among the good herdsmen of
Salanfe, under the Dent du Midi, will be rich in old tales, and he
thus relates the legend of the Monster of the Jorat:--
“The herdsmen tell me that formerly (some even think they can recall
the time) there dwelt on the Col du Jorat, a monster, a dragon, in
fine an animal of unknown species and horrible aspect, who guarded the
passage of the Col by night. He had already claimed many victims and
the boldest hunters dared not attack him. Night having fallen, he
descended from the glacier. He reigned over the whole mountain, and
woe betide the man who approached the Jorat.
“One day, at last, a man of the Rhône valley had been condemned to
death. He possessed uncommon strength and boldness. Pardon was offered
him on condition that he should fight the monster and succeed in
destroying him. He accepted, climbed up to Salanfe, waited for night
and mounted the path of the Jorat. It is said that the battle was
terrible; but the man was victorious and tranquillity was after that
restored to the pastures of Salanfe.”
Javelle explained the reluctance of the mountaineers at climbing to
the upper heights by this universal belief in supernatural powers, and
he explained the belief in these supernatural powers by their very
familiarity with the strange phenomena of the mountains:--“They see
the boulders come rolling down from the cliffs, the avalanches
breaking off from the heights and dashing down to demolish their
châlets--in the heights originate the storms; and there also they hear
those mysterious crackings of the glacier. It is not strange that such
phenomena should be explained by them in legends.”
Their imagination, too, is shown in the various names which they
confer on the Devil. He is Lo Grabbi, the Miser; La Bêta Crotze
(Bête-à-griffe), the beast with claws; Le Niton, the Tricky One; Lo
Tannai, Cavern-haunter; L’Ozé or Lo Maffi, the Sly One; Lo To-frou,
the Always Abroad. One of his assistants is the Nion-neloû
(Nul-ne-l’entend), who hides behind trees and jumps out to scare
horses. The Diablerets are the very stamping-ground of dwarfs, gnomes,
and dragons. When a pinnacle is doomed to fall, they quarrel as to
its direction. At Rubli these supernatural beings are called _gommes_:
they guard mines; at night they are seen as meteors going from place
to place.
* * * * *
Whence came the great heaps of stones, as for instance at the foot of
Jolimont? We know that these vast masses, often of a different kind of
rock from that characteristic of the locality, were brought down by
glaciers; but the ignorant peasants attribute them to Satan, who, of
course, was intending to crush some Christian church with them, but,
perhaps through catching sight of a cross, was compelled to drop them.
Some of these stones are of enormous size--the Plowstone, for
instance, which rises almost twenty meters (sixty feet) above the
ground between Erlenbach and Wetzweil and has been traced to its
original source in the canton of Glarus.
But there is one more than twice as big at Montet, near Devent, and
when, later, we were going over the Monte Moro pass, we saw one near
the Mattmark See which it is estimated contains two hundred and forty
thousand cubic feet of Serpentine. Clever old Devil to get rid of his
burden! The Swiss Government now prohibits breaking up these blocks
of stone for building purposes. This was due to the initiative of the
Swiss Scientific Societies.
Forbes, in his “Travels through the Alps of Savoy,” gives a very good
description of these masses of rock as seen at Monthey, overlooking
the valley of the Rhône:--
“We have here a belt or band of blocks--poised, as it were, on a
mountain-side, it may be five hundred feet above the alluvial flat
through which the Rhône winds below. This belt has no great vertical
height, but extends for miles--yes, for miles--along the mountain,
composed of blocks of granite of thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty feet
to the side, not a few, but by hundreds, fantastically balanced on the
angles of one another, their gray weather-beaten tops standing out in
prominent relief from the verdant slope of secondary formation on
which they rest. For three or four miles there is a path, preserving
nearly the same level, leading amidst the gnarled stems of ancient
chestnut-trees which struggle round and among the pile of blocks,
which leaves them barely room to grow: so that numberless combinations
of wood and rock are formed where a landscape-painter might spend days
in study and enjoyment.”
The very Pierres de Niton which entered into the foreground of the
picture which I was contemplating have been traced to the Saint
Bernard, and it is estimated that it took a thousand years for the
glacier to bring them down from that height and deposit them in what
is now the lake.
As I stood there I was especially led to think of the influence that
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is supposed to have exerted in stimulating
people to enjoy the grander aspects of Nature. Literature, before
Rousseau’s time, has little to say of the beauty of mountains. They
were regarded with annoyance as obstacles, with terror as filled with
dangers. Joseph Addison, speaking of the Savoy Alps, says they are
“broken into so many steeps and precipices that they fill the mind
with an agreeable kind of horror and form one of the most irregular,
mis-shapen scenes in the world.”
I am not sure but Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who became Baron d’Aubonne,
from the name of his estate near Geneva, does not deserve priority.
After he had ended his travels in the Far East and had decided to
settle in Switzerland he wrote his friends in Paris of his choice:
“Friends, I have long been looking for a country-house where to end
my life in tranquillity.
“Now you would doubtless choose France; it is the loveliest country in
the world; no other approaches it.
“Gentlemen, France is a charming, delightful country, I agree with
you, ... but my heart and my eyes are in Switzerland.
“‘What! That country of ice and sterile mountains, whose inhabitants
would not have a quarter of the subsistence necessary for them, if
other countries did not support a large part of its inhabitants!’
“You know Switzerland very well, as I can see. Gentlemen, such as it
is, for me it is the loveliest country in the world.”
It was one of the boasts before Rousseau’s time that a seigneur’s
place should have no view. Both Madame de Genlis, in Voltaire’s
lifetime, and James Fenimore Cooper, fifty years after the great
Frenchman’s death, noticed the fact that the view from Ferney was
quite cut off by shrubbery, evidently showing that he cared little for
it. Madame de Staël, though she was sympathetic enough with Rousseau,
cared little for natural scenery. When some enthusiastic visitors were
praising the beauties of Lake Leman she exclaimed:--“Oh for the
gutters of the Rue de Bac.”
But, after all, it is only fair to give Rousseau’s own words, his
invitation to the world to come to Switzerland and share with him
these marvellous scenes. They are eloquent words, indeed! Nor did they
fall on unheeding ears.
“I conduct you to the loftiest mountains of the old world, to the most
ancient laboratory of Nature, where she operated with boundless energy
before man existed, and where she produces objects of inexpressible
sublimity and beauty, now that there are mortals to admire them. I
conduct you to the secret sources of the rivers that irrigate and
fertilize half Europe. I conduct you on one and the same day from the
scorching heat of Spain to the cold of Lapland or Spitzbergen; from
the vine and the chestnut-tree to the Alpine rose, and from the Alpine
rose to the last insignificant moss that grows on the extreme verge of
animated Nature.
“You shall find fragrance in flowers, which in the valleys yield no
scent; you shall pluck strawberries on the margin of everlasting ice.
“I conduct you to the fountain of the dews and rains that dispense
blessings over half our quarter of the globe; to the birthplace of
refreshing breezes and of storms which temper and purify the
atmosphere.
“I conduct you to the clearest and freshest springs, the most
magnificent water-falls, the most extensive glaciers, the most
stupendous snow-clad mountains and the most fertile pastures. The
tremendous avalanche shall pursue before you its thundering career.
“The brilliant crystal, the swift chamois, the harmless marmot, the
soaring eagle, the rapacious vulture, as unusual objects, will strike
your eye and excite pleasure and admiration.
“From the toiling husbandman you will ascend to the happy cowherd.
Innumerable flocks of cattle, of extraordinary beauty and spirit, will
bound about you. In the foaming milk and the clotted cream you will
taste of the riches of the country which are poured forth into the
most distant regions.
“But, above all, you will be delighted with the inhabitants, men
of rare symmetry of form, active and robust, cheerful and
independent,--women, decked with unsophisticated charms and graces and
manifesting the childlike curiosity and the engaging confidence of the
ancient ages of innocence.
“Old traditions and rural songs will meet your ear, and the picture
presented in the idyls of Theocritus will be realized, but on a
grander scale and with more diversified accompaniments.
“Lastly, in those elevated regions you will yourself become better;
you will verify the promise of the moral philosopher; you will feel
greater facility of respiration, more suppleness and vigor of body,
and greater buoyancy of spirits. All the passions are here softened
down and pleasure is less intense. The mind is led into a grand and
sublime train of thought, suited to the objects which surround us; it
is filled with a certain calm delight unalloyed with anything that is
painful or sensual. It seems as if in rising above the habitations of
men we left behind us all base and earthly feelings; and as if the
soul in approaching nearer to the ethereal heaven acquired somewhat of
its unruffled serenity.”
And quite à propos, it seems to me, here is Rousseau’s famous
description of the sunrise:
“Let us betake ourselves to some lofty place before the Sun appears.
We see him announced from afar by the fiery darts which he sends
before him. The fire increases; the east seems all in flames. By
their dazzling splendor one looks for the orb long before it shows
itself. Each instant one thinks to see it appear. There it is at last!
A brilliant point shoots off like a flash and instantly fills all
space....
“The veil of darkness is rent and falls; man recognizes his
dwelling-place and finds it ever-more more beautiful. During the night
the verdure has taken on new vigor; the dawning day which lights it,
the first rays which gild it, bring it before us with a glittering
panoply of dew, flashing brilliant colors into our eyes. The birds
join in chorus and salute the father of life. The concourse of all
these objects brings to the senses an impression of freshness which
seems to penetrate into the depths of the soul. Here is a half-hour of
enchantment which no man can resist. A spectacle so grand, so
beautiful, so delicious, leaves no one unmoved.”
Rousseau attributed his love of Nature to the two peaceful years which
he spent at the parsonage at Borsey, developing as they did his taste
and enabling him later to bring about a complete revolution in the
esthetic and literary tendencies of the century. If Rousseau got up to
see a sunrise, why, then it became the fashion to get up and see
sunrises; if Rousseau went to a high mountain-top, then it became
fashionable to go to high mountain-tops. Here is his recipe for
mountain-climbing, written after he had made an excursion on foot to
Valais in the Autumn of 1759:--
“I gradually realized that the purity of the air was the real cause of
the return of that interior peace which I had lost so long. In fact on
high mountains, where the air is pure and subtle, we feel a greater
facility in breathing, greater physical lightness, greater mental
serenity. Our meditations take on a peculiar character of grandeur and
sublimity, proportioned to the objects surrounding us. It seems as if
in rising above the dwellings of men, we left behind all low and
terrestrial thoughts and, in proportion as we approach the upper
regions, the soul attains something of their changeless purity. Here
we are grave, but not melancholy; peaceful, but not indolent; simply
content to be and to think. I doubt if any violent agitation, if any
_maladie des vapeurs_ could resist such a sojourn if prolonged, and I
am amazed that baths in the wholesome and beneficent mountain-air are
not one of the sovereign remedies of medicine and morals.”
The same idea is found in quaint lines in a Mountain Poem by Usteri:
“Uf Bergen, uf Bergen
Da isch’s eim so wohl
De Berg is de Doktor
Für Seel und für Lyb!”
Alexander Pope and other old English writers are always talking about
fits of “vapours.” I wonder how the name arose, and why it went
out of style. Vapour comes from water, tears are water; hence
vapours,--perhaps that is the logic of the term. Of course then they
would evaporate in the dry mountain-air.
I recollected how Rousseau loved this very lake. I remembered his
apostrophe to it after he had been out sailing on it:--
“As we skirted the shores, I admired the rich and charming landscapes
of the Pays de Vaud, where the hosts of villages, the green and
well-kept terraces on all sides form a ravishing picture; where the
land, everywhere cultivated and everywhere fertile, offers the
plowman, the herdman, the vintner the assured fruit of their labors,
not devoured as elsewhere by the grasping tax-collector.... The lake
was calm. I kept perfect silence. The even and measured noise of the
oars set me to dreaming. A cloudless sky, the coolness of the air, the
sweet rays of the moon, the silvery shimmer of the water shining
around us, filled me with the most delicious sensations. Oh, my
lake! thou hast a charm which I cannot explain, which does not arise
wholly from the beauty of the scene, but from something more
interesting, which affects me and touches me. When the eager desire of
this sweet and happy life for which I was born comes to kindle my
imagination, it always attaches itself to the lake.”
[Illustration: ACROSS LAKE LEMAN.]
And then again his poignant cry of farewell:
“Oh, my lake, on the shores of which I spent the peaceful years of
mine infancy, charming landscapes where for the first time I witnessed
the majestic and touching sunrise, where I felt the first emotions of
my heart, the first impulse of genius, alas! become too imperious....
Oh, my lake, I shall never see thee more.”