“in point of fact” it has been only--oh! I shan’t go into calculations
and dates. Figures are such unmanageable little demons I cut them long
ago. There is no such thing as getting round them. They are so fair and
square and exact and relentless, I throw up my hands and give up without
struggle when it comes to a contest with them. Let me see; I must make a
beginning somewhere. Where did I leave off, I wonder? Does it matter?
How can it, seeing I am not “a newspaper correspondent,” or writing for
fame or “filthy lucre,” or for anything in the “wide, wide world” that
can be attributed to a higher impulse than natural depravity? For
between ourselves, to be really honest, I do believe I am writing simply
and solely to--nag you! Why? Oh, just because “a woman’s reason.” It is
not only argument, but it overcomes all logic, which, from your superior
sphere of immensity, being a bachelor, you have not found out. Just look
out when you get your supplemental hemisphere, and think of these
words! They are a lot of nonsense to you now; they will be the
quintessence of wisdom to you then. But I am not going to let you any
further into the secrets of that blissful “two in one existence.” Go and
find out for yourself, “old boy.” In Paradise! Write a poem on those
words; they seem meant for me. Well, I have been in this, “the Paradise
of all good Americans,” for two weeks plus. Somehow I think I can find a
better one for my soul, but it is a tiptop place for one still in the
body.
I came from Paris _all alone_ one lovely moonlight night and sunshiny
day. The trip had a smack of royalty in it. I chartered a wagon lit (a
“sleeping-car,” as _we_ say), and bribed the garde (conductor), and
otherwise bestowed myself “as only princes and princesses do in this
country,” said the pleasant German people with whom I had been domiciled
so long. “Oh!” said I, “_I_ am a princess; we are all princesses in
America, _or can be_”--the last little clause _sotto voce_. My “wagon”
was all crimson, velvet and mahogany, and looked so glowy when my
cavalier shrouded the lamp, a generous one in size and esthetic in its
finish of antique bronze, in a crimson shade, I thought it was heated
to midsummer warmth; but didn’t I find out to the contrary before
morning! And the thin, chilly little French couch after my German nest
of down--will I ever forget it? Every time I glanced at it, it just
resolved the whole me--body, mind and spirit--into one big shiver.
Thanks to the glorious full moon, that could not put out Orion though,
there was ample entertainment outside, so I sat up all night. It did not
seem long till that freezing period just before dawn set in; then all my
wraps, and the little bed’s _one cover_ added to them, couldn’t make me
warm.
You can guess I was glad when we ran into Strassburg at five, and I was
conducted to a great, bright, comforting fire and a delicious hot
breakfast. My special waiter talked English, too, and I didn’t give him
a rest for the hour we tarried there. My blessed native tongue! Take my
word for it, till you prove for yourself, the sweetest sounds human ear
can catch are those of one’s own vernacular. The German cars were heated
by invisible registers and were the perfection of comfort, but at
Avricourt, the frontier, we changed into French, and their heating
apparatus was a flat zinc tube laid on the floor, “a mere foot warmer.”
“I kept chilling,” as they say in ague countries, all the rest of the
day, notwithstanding an Italian gentleman who spoke four languages,
English being one, and two French gentlemen who spoke French only,
devoted themselves to securing my comfort. The delicacy of the
adjustment of their attentions I shall never forget--to the extreme of
courtesy, but never verging on obtrusiveness. Well, the long, wearing
day came to an end, and Paris and my uncle met me. But--this is why I
told you all the above--such a dreadful cold as the trip and change from
German comfort to French chilliness and cheerlessness gave me! I have
been fighting it ever since. It is accompanied with an excess of
deafness. And now you can account for all my viciousness.
I have had “a pretty good time” though, notwithstanding. Have been to a
beautiful dinner party, where I met eighteen very agreeable Americans
and two or three French people. Have made other pleasant acquaintances,
and “got in” a reasonable amount of “sight-seeing.” The weather till
yesterday and to-day has been all sunshine and April-like in
temperature. The grass is from three to four inches high, thick and
green in the squares, gardens and Bois de Boulogne, and the flower-beds
are full of flowers. I have bundled up equal to an Esquimau and had
several “outings,” leaving my cold to its own devices. And I
have--“_honor bright_”--fallen in love. Perfectly ridiculous and absurd
in one of my age! but I could not keep it. He is _so_ handsome, so
elegant, so genial, so witty, so entertaining--so everything! I wasn’t
thinking of such a catastrophe, and I did not know what was the matter
till the mischief was done. Don’t pity my infatuation. I glory in it. He
is “worth millions,” and 81+. You ought to see us enjoy each other. I’ll
tell you more about him some time.
Paris does not overwhelm me as London did, because, I suppose, I did not
see it _first_; nor does it charm me as Munich did, perhaps because I
have so much Dutch blood in my veins against not one drop of French. The
parts I have seen do not give it a distinctive character; it is rather
cosmopolitan, like our great cities, than foreign. I had a lovely
half-day--nothing seems to be done here till after the 12 o’clock
breakfast--at Napoleon’s monument, the grandest I have seen; the Hotel
des Invalides, with its church and armory and picturesquely dilapidated
ruins of human beings; the Trocadero; Passy, a charming suburb of
homes; and so through a part of the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs
Elysées home. Another, I spent at the manufactory of the _Gobelins_,
those tapestries as immortal as the frescoes of Angelo and Raphael. Some
of them are worked from express designs by the latter. Think of six
square inches a day being a full-grown man’s daily task! Such a
respectable-looking body of men as they are, too! They are raised for
that special work, and their hands are not permitted to degrade
themselves by contact with any other. Yet another at a Pompeian
palace--meant to be an exact reproduction of the villas of that buried
city. It is a gem of unique and exquisite beauty, and I broke one of the
commandments; for I could not help coveting my neighbor’s possessions.
It is full of Story’s (_our_ Story) statuary.
One statue, Saul, is in tinted marble, a grand, majestic old man, and
certainly in some respects a triumph of the chisel’s art, but I am not
quite sure I indorse the tinting. No satisfaction can be complete. There
was a number of imposing female statues; their names are at the base in
_Greek characters_, which I know. What I did not know, nor any of the
party, was the English of those names! I ground my teeth and “vowed a
vow”--when I die and am resurrected, I mean to be mistress of every
language under the sun _or_ abolish all but one. There shall never be
another Tower of Babel experiment on the same planet with myself--never!
One of the paintings on the wall of the picture gallery was a haunting
one--a turbulent ocean, a cloudy sky; not high in the heavens a thinner
mass of cloud through which the moon shone with sufficient strength to
cast a wake of spectral light athwart those heaving surges. “Solitude”
was the name. I could not keep my eyes from it. I have seen just such a
night, and felt in all its force the dreary, weird solitude of it. Do I
make you see it? Shut your eyes and try. I go from here to Italy in a
few days.
L. G. C.
Paris, February 8, 1883.
[Illustration]
PARIS.
Here again, after six months’ absence--six months only! How to believe
that! Why, I seem to have lived cycles and cycles; seem to be not one,
just one small, insignificant I, but dozens and dozens of myself. Yes,
even sometimes have an enormous delusion that the little nobody who went
away suffered a not-sea, but an no, not-earth--What then? Ah! I have it:
tourist change into something strange, grand, glorious (it must out),
goddess-like! Was ever presumption so immense and so absurd? Well, _I_
am not responsible for it, but the _experiences_. Could any mortal go
through such and escape the same scath?
September 2d. If good intentions were the same sort of masters that
czars, emperors, the great mogul, the sublime porte, _et id omne genus_
are, or have been--what a lot of things come under that last pathetic
head--this letter would have been finished and on the way to you. But
there is such a throng of hindering duties got themselves mixed up in my
affairs, I really don’t know what moment I may be ruthlessly torn from
the performance of what I wish to do to that I wish--still more to do!
Such is woman’s--
September 3d. Just there I was torn off again after I don’t know how
many feminine raps at my door and feminine heads bobbing in, and, worst
of all, each of them supplied with that rabidest of all tongues, a
feminine one! (Let alone a woman for a just estimate of her own sex!)
Don’t that last dozen lines show “confusion worse confounded” from some
cause? You have no leave to indulge in mental comment, such as,
“Perhaps, my lady, that unspiritual circumstance was in your own state
of mind, without any outside pressure to develop it.” And so don’t you
dare. Truth is, I was in the superlative degree of calmness,
collectedness, clearness, comprehensiveness, like clouds that have
gathered their quota of electricity, the inevitable “next thing” being
“the most brilliant display of fireworks of the season.” Any letter
heretofore would have been a battery of “spent balls,” an eruption of
mere dead cinders. There! that’s what you would have gotten, what you
have missed, because of those hindering goddesses. “The more’s the
pity.”
I glance up at that last broken sentence, “Such is woman’s--.” What was
to follow, I am as much at a loss to recall as a panic-stage, I
mean--struck, debutante of the boards. Oh! for “a prompter.” Can’t you
come to the rescue? I will “most graciously permit.” And do you know,
even now when I have double-locked (both doors and _ears_) myself in for
this blessed privilege of communion with a “choice fellow-being,” these
pages are bound to be tossed off with the lightning-like rapidity of a
printing-press of the latest patent, not only with all modern
improvements, but those of the future too! For somebody is coming
directly to _dejeuner_ with me, another specimen of feminine attributes,
that of being equal to inviting herself, being not the least. She will
claim me for the rest of the day. And that’s the way it will be.
You will see,
And alas! and alas! for this letter to thee,
If it be not writ a la electricity,
Or by some still more potent diablerie!
There’s a flash of inspiration for you, which reminds me I had a
feminine compliment yesterday among those other feminine impositions. If
it had been of masculine origin, how different would have been the
animus of the
[Illustration: The Old Lion, Lucerne.]
“return-thanks.” She said, it must be true if one woman could bestow
such words on another, so you needn’t try to put a pin in my balloon.
“Mrs. Collins is always _inspired_.” I had just “made a remark” as
innocent as “a natural” (Scotch for idiot) of any intention to soar
above “the dead level.” Think of my sudden inflation. In all your
kite-flying days, you never gave one such “a bully send-off.” You may be
sure I did not allow myself to “flop down” by opening my mouth except
for “rations” the rest of the day. But was I ever “in the whole course
of my long life” whirled about in such an eddy of nonsence? I can’t
account for it, unless on the principle of counter-irritation, because
writing to you who are so lavish of “good, sound sense.” Bite and wait
for your own turn. I am applying soothing lotions already in
anticipation of the crunching your reply will give me. How I’ll wish I
had not _then_. Well, now I may as well have out “my dance on a
fiddle-string.”
I left off at Lucerne. I wish I could remember what I told you of that
lovely week there. I shan’t venture on more than a word for fear of
repeating myself. But I want you to know, if I did not tell you, what a
hold that “lion” has taken. You know about it; that it is carved in a
grotto out of the natural sandstone in the face of the grand cliff, the
crest of which is fringed with overhanging trees. It is reclining,
dying, transfixed by a broken lance, and protecting with its poor,
helpless paw the shield of France with its Bourbon Lily. Anything more
noble and pathetic I cannot conceive. It made my heart ache as the Dying
Gladiator did. I wanted to get near enough to take its head in my lap
and stroke it, and chafe its paw with my hands, and somehow make it feel
my human sympathy. Indeed, it is a miracle “in kind,” that dead stone
can be wrought into forms that so move one. The wonder of this is that
it is _a lion_--the lord of the brute creation, it is true--but not a
human being in a lion’s form. The qualities expressed are those tested
in our intercourse with that “lower order of creation,” affection, sense
of trust, faithfulness unto death. You don’t know how often I think of
him, and yearn to him as to a living suffering creature, that majestic
creation of one of my fellow beings. Oh! sometimes I take a most
reverential pride in my race. Who was it--Dr. Holland--who said, “It is
a great thing to be a man?” One must agree now and again. I shan’t
linger on Lucerne now. Hereafter, may be. From there here will have to
be a skeletonized sketch. You can’t divine the difficulty of leaving out
how trying such shadowy limning is to such an effusive creature as I,
who have always had the dubious distinction of making not something, but
_so much out of nothing, of seeing more than is ever shown. Alas! poor
me._
From Lucerne by the Schöellenen Defile and Furka Pass to the Rhone
Glacier, a diligence trip from Andermat, giving many privileges in the
way of fine views and other things, such as “getting up very high in the
world.” At last nothing but barren rocks, snow and the plucky little
wild flowers, that wouldn’t be beaten out of beautifying waste places as
long as a cleft or cranny was found to give them a foothold. At the very
highest, 7,992 feet, I could have made snow-balls with one hand and
posies with the other without moving. I saw the great glacier from
almost every point, and in such a glow of sunshine as can only be
transcended in some other world. From it to Visp. Here I had my first
“mule ride,” _on horseback, with a guide to lead it_. This for four
hours; then a blessed exchange to an open carriage, which in as many
more hours brought us to Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn. Here
the windows of my room just framed that curious freak of rock and snow,
and I saw its transfiguration at dawn without moving my head from my
pillow. Give me due credit though for the early wakefulness that won me
that spectacle. First, in the wink of an eye, one glowing, burning
golden ruby spot--the tip of the horn struck by the first gleam in the
crystal of dawn; then it spread downward like the suffusion of a blush
to where its base seemed resting on a dark pine-covered mountain; and
behold! the whole gigantic horn a dazzling mass of that fervid glow. You
can guess Beauty in the fairy story did not lie stiller or more
breathless under her spell of enchantment.
Then I had my second mule-ride, this time a sure-enough mule, to make
the ascent of the Gorner Grat. I don’t know what you know about it, but
I am bound to tell you something at least of what I know. Just here I
think I’ll confess to a singular hallucination; _it seems to me that
nothing I have been seeing was ever seen before_. My analysis of this
has only gone far enough to convince me there is no egotism,
self-conceit or anything “on a lower range of feeling” in this, only
that innocent, unsophisticated child-feeling over an experience out of
its common way. This is a ridge of rock rising in the center of a vast
hollow surrounded by a vaster amphitheater of snow-peaks and glaciers,
the former including the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, etc., the latter
numbering eleven. It is the sublimest spectacle my eyes have rested on.
Retracing to Visp, then by rail along the Rhone to Leuk, whence by open
carriage again to Leukesbad to make the passage of the Gemmi.
Leukesbad is the place where they do the spectacular bathing, remaining
in the baths for hours at a time, and to beguile the tediousness thereof
having floating tables on which are placed books, papers, games or
refreshments--the public admitted to see what good times can be got in
that way. Also there is a great curiosity in the neighborhood; a little
village of a most aspiring turn of mind has built itself like an eagle’s
eyrie on the most inaccessible perch it could find, 8,895 feet high. The
way to it is by a pathway or stairway of ladders fastened into the
precipitous face of the mountains. The guide-book does not recommend a
trial of it to persons liable to dizziness, and says the descent is more
difficult than the ascent. It says also, however, that the view from the
grotto at the end of the second ladder will repay the climber. You can
guess into what climber’s head that “put notions.” Yes, she stole off
there Sunday morning, “all alone by herself,” took the measure of the
feat and feet, laid aside ulster, umbrella and guide-book, and went up
like a beast on all fours, and down like a crawfish. Alas! that you can
never know the comfort and elation of having done it.
The passage of the Gemmi was another bona fide mule ride. I had heard so
much about the precipitousness and the danger of the climb, my heart had
been in my mouth whenever I thought of it for days before. Nothing but
moral cowardice prevented the physical cowardice of--backing out. Were
you to taunt me with “You couldn’t do it again,” a la Tom Sawyer, to the
comrade who had just licked him (by the skin of his teeth), I’d follow
his example and _not try_. Imagine, as far as in you lies, a mule-ride
up a tree or a steep spiral staircase; above, sheer precipices; below,
to such frightful depths, the same--two and one-half hours of that. Do
you wonder I went “into retreat” at the top, if not to give thanks,
surely for the precious privilege of once more drawing some long
breaths? It was a five and one-half hours’ mule-ride to Kandersteg at
the foot on the other side. We got to our hotel at 9 p. m., and slept
the sleep of the elect. Open carriage next morning to Thun; the sunshine
so glorious I didn’t believe _it_ could ever “do it again,” and every
roll of the wheels bearing onward to fresh charms of earth, air and sky.
From Thun to Interlaken for a week; Staubbach, drives and walks in honor
of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger. You know that part of the story well.
All the world does it. But to no one did it ever happen what unto me
there befell one wonder afternoon. At the Belvedere, atop of a pretty
height which commands the best view of that trio of snow-covered
beauties, a party of English ladies came in. I caught the eye of one
lovely-faced, silver-haired, soft-voiced, sweet-mannered old lady; an
instant exchange of bow and smile, and then much pleasant talk. At
parting, she fixed her eyes on me with such a blessing-beaming look in
them, and said with the clearest distinctness of those low, silver
tones, “May all your walks be pleasant.” I shall carry that benediction
with me in every walk my feet shall tread in the future. From Interlaken
to Berne, striking a _fest_, a peasant’s wrestling match, set for
Sunday! Fine opportunity for seeing men, women and peasants’ costumes.
Heard its great organ; saw the bear-clock; paid my visit of courtesy to
the bears; had all its exquisite views; went to its really fine museum
to see those marvelous specimens of white and black quartz-crystals, one
weighing over 290 pounds and several over 200; and also “Barry,” the
noble St. Bernard that saved fifteen lives; and ever so much else. Then
Fribourg and its lime-tree dating from 1476, its organ, and a walk that
might belong to a tale of necromancy.
On to Lucerne and _the_ “Lake Leman,” where I went and sat in the garden
in which Gibbon “wrote the conclusion of his great work.” And next,
Chillon! I loitered away hours there. It is the loveliest, most
romantic, picturesque spot. I wish I owned it! I stayed till the sun set
fire to it, the lake and the snow peaks in the background, and then saw
the full moon swing into space right over it; then a long, long sigh,
and the train through several stages to Vernayaz, to make another
“passage” to Chamouny. Another gorge, the Gorge de Trient at V. equals
that at Pfäffers. A funny little two-wheeled vehicle and a guide, and we
attacked the ascent. It wasn’t so perilous as that of the Gemmi, but it
wasn’t easy. We crossed a waterfall tearing down the mountain side
forty-nine times over as many bridges. It was beautiful beyond the reach
of words. As to giving even an idea of the innumerable beauties of that
route, it would take a long summer’s day to do it. There was another
gorge, different, but as interesting: lovely vales, glaciers, torrents,
mountains, snow peaks, cascades, almost as numerous as the hairs on your
head, especially if you are inclining to baldness, and so on. At
Chamouni the monarch “crowned long ago.” I was a most willing worshiper
at his feet. Like Mark Twain, the only ascent of him I cared to make was
by telescope. But I made that of the Brerent, the next best thing. The
mule ride again, with a guide at the bit; but even that didn’t seem so
good part of the time as my own feet, and the last half hour _had_ to be
done that way. It was all “of a piece” climbing up rocks and plunging
over stretches of snow, while my “little hand lay lightly”--not a bit of
it--with the tightest kind of a grip, as well as “confidingly,” in that
of my guide. He was as tender of me as a lover--more so--as for the time
being we were bound to each other “for better and for worse.” The
Mer-de-glace came in too; not the conventional walk across; for one who
had walked across the Ohio, what was that, pray? Bah! From Chamouni by
diligence, in an ecstasy all the way to Geneva. There for some days,
with excursions on the lake into its realms of inexplicable blue, where
everything was so unreal and ethereal. I felt as if I too were a
phantom, a dream, a spirit, just as little of a reality as all I was
surrounded by. From Geneva here.
About that book, and your need of the aid of “good taste, judgment and
scholarship,” it strikes me any one who had to help that much would
feel, like you, “certainly very glad when the creature was fledged.”
Thankee, sir; I never can bear to know what I am to have for dinner, or
any other meal. That for sauce. This for earnest. Call on Miss B----. I
don’t know the woman who is so equal to such demand. She knows
everything and has it at command. She is a long distance beyond me in
such matters. This is no affectation; I mean it.
Many thanks for your charges in behalf of proper caretaking. I don’t
mean to break down if I can help it. Am now taking a good rest. This
pension is a kind of a home--_Paris_ home. I could tell some things of
its kindness--yes, even petting--would show how much I have to be
thankful for. The dear, good madame takes me in her arms, kisses me
“from ear to ear,” and, what is better, smuggles “goodies” in to me
unbeknown to the others! It is too funny to see her coming with one hand
covered with a napkin and the forefinger of the other on her lips! My
room adjoins the salon. I take the hint. Wouldn’t you? Answer.
L. G. C.
Paris, September 1, 1883.
[Illustration]
PARIS.
You wrote the last day of the year and did not give me a wish for the
New! Did you forget? Or do you think the custom puerile? I think I like
it most heartily, even with its limitations, as are set forth in some
simple lines I came across, and which you must read to make your
conscience tender:
“Tender and true, friend,
Yet all unavailing
To guard or to give you
One gift that can bless.
Should sorrow o’ertake
Or pain be assailing,
I could not assure you
One trial the less.
“Tender and true friend
As One--the all-loving,
Whose arm will encompass
Should evil be near.
Cling closely to Him--in firm
Faith in His proving
Tender and true, friend,
Through all the New Year.”