A MONTH
IN
_SWITZERLAND_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the same Author,
Demy 8vo. 14_s._
EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS AND
OF THE KEDIVÉ.
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_SELECTION from NOTICES by the PRESS._
THE SPECTATOR.
‘We have in this volume a thoughtful, almost exhaustive, treatment of a
subject too often handled by mere _dilettante_ writers, who dismiss as
unworthy of notice the problems with which they are unable to cope....
We heartily commend Mr. Zincke’s delightful book as a fresh pleasure to
the thoughtful reader.’
THE LITERARY CHURCHMAN.
‘A more independent and original volume of Egyptian travel than at this
time of day we should have thought possible. Mr. Zincke has a quickness
of eye, a vigour of judgment, and a raciness of style which place him
far above the ordinary run of travellers.... Readers will lose much if
they do not make some acquaintance with this truly remarkable volume.’
THE GUARDIAN.
‘Each chapter takes some one topic, treats it in sharp piquant style,
and generally throws some new light upon it, or makes it reflect some
new light upon something else. If these bright and sparkling pages are
taken as containing suggestions to be worked out for oneself and
accepted or rejected in the light of more mature knowledge, they will be
found full of value.’
THE SATURDAY REVIEW.
‘Mr. Zincke speaks like a man of rare powers of perception, with an
intense love of nature in her various moods, and an intellectual
sympathy broad and deep as the truth itself.’
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.
‘A very pleasant and interesting book.... Mr. Zincke tells his readers
exactly such facts as they would wish to know. The style is
captivating.’
THE EXAMINER.
‘A series of brilliant and suggestive essays.’
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SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.
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A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND
BY
F. BARHAM ZINCKE
VICAR OF WHERSTEAD
CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN
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Deo Opt. Max.
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LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1873
_All rights reserved_
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PREFACE
THE LEGITIMATE USE of a Preface, like that of a Prologue, is merely to
give explanations that will be necessary, and to save from expectations
that would be delusive. I will, therefore, at once say to those who may
have read my ‘Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Kedivé,’ that this little
book belongs to the same family. The cast of thought and the aims of the
two are kindred, and both endeavour to do their work by similar methods.
They are, alike, efforts to attain to a right reading, and a right
interpretation of nature, and of man. The differences between them are,
perhaps, such as must result from the differences in the matter itself
they had, respectively, to take account of. The field, in which the
younger sister here makes some studies, is small in extent; its physical
conditions, too, are those of our own part of the world, and its human
issues those of our own times. It ought, therefore, to be looked at from
very near points of view, and to be exhibited in pictures of much detail
and minuteness. The field, however, which the elder sister surveyed, was
wide in area, and rich with scenes of singularly varied character. Its
place, indeed, in the panorama of nature possesses an interest which is
exclusively its own; and its history includes a chapter in the
construction of thought and of society, of which—while again its own
with almost equal exclusiveness—the right appreciation is necessary for
the right understanding of some contemporary and subsequent chapters in
general history, and not least of the one that is at this day unfolding
itself, with ourselves for the actors, we being, also, at the same time,
the material dealt with, and fashioned. So it presented itself to my own
mind, and so I attempted to set it before the reader’s mind.
To those, however, who are unacquainted with the book I have just
referred to in explanation of the character and aims of its successor, I
would describe the impulse under which both of them were written in the
familiar words, ‘My heart was hot within me; and, while I was thus
musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue.’ I had
been much stirred by a month spent among the Swiss mountains, not only
by what might have been their effect upon me had I been alone, but also
by what I had seen of their effect upon others—to one of whom, a child
who was with me throughout the excursion (if mention of so small a
matter, as it may appear to some, can be allowed), a little space has
been given in the following pages; and this it was that first made me
wish to fix in words the scenes I had passed through, the impressions I
had received from them, and the thoughts that had grown out of them. But
how unlike was the landscape, and those who peopled it, to what had come
before the eye, and the mind’s eye, in Egypt! Instead of the long
life-giving river and the broad life-repelling desert, both so replete
with history, the import of which is not yet dead, as well as with
natural phenomena of an unwonted character to eyes familiarised with the
aspects of our little sea-girt sanctuary, as we fondly deem it,
Switzerland offered for contemplation, in the order of nature, the ice
and snow world of its cloud-piercing mountains; and, in the order of
what is of existing human concern, unflagging industry, patient
frugality, intelligently-adapted education, a natural form of
land-tenure, and popular government; and invited the spectator of its
scenery, as well as of the social and intellectual fermentation of
portions of its people, in strong contrast to the immobility of other
portions, to meditate on some of the new elements, which modern
knowledge, and modern conditions of society, may have contributed for
the enlargement and rectification of some of our religious ideas,
inclusive, and, perhaps, above all, of our idea of God; for these ideas
have at every epoch of man’s history been, more or less, modified by
contemporary knowledge, and the contemporary conditions of society.
These were the materials for thought Switzerland supplied. Upon all of
those, however, which belong to the order of human concern, Egypt, too,
in its sense and fashion, had had something to tell us.
* * * * *
As to the form and colouring of the work, I could have wished that there
had been, throughout, submitted to the reader’s attention nothing but
the scenes described, and the thoughts they gave rise to, without any
suggestion, had that been possible, of the writer’s personality. In a
work of this kind a vain wish: for in all books, those only excepted
that are simply scientific, and in the highest degree in those that deal
with matter, in which human interests preponderate, the personality of
the writer must be seen in everything he writes. All that he describes
is described as he saw and observed it. Others would have observed
things differently. So, too, with what he thought about them; it must be
different from what others would have thought. A book of this kind must,
therefore, be, to a great extent, a fragment of autobiography, in which,
for the time, the inner is seen in its immediate relation to the
external life of the author. It gives what he felt and thought; his
leanings, and likings, and wishes; his readings of the past and of the
present; and his mental moorings. This—and especially is it so on a
subject with which everyone is familiar, though it may be one that can
never be worn out—is all he properly has to say. And his having
something of this kind to say, is his only justification for saying
anything at all. The expectation, too, of finding that he has treated
matters a little in this way is, in no small degree, what induces people
to give a hearing to what he says. They take up his book just because
they have reason for supposing that he has regarded things from his own
point of view, and so seen them from a side, and in a light, and in
relations to connected subjects, somewhat different from those in which
other people, themselves included, may have seen them; and that he has,
therefore, taken into his considerations and estimates some particulars
they must have omitted in theirs. Whether his ideas are to the purpose,
whether they will hold water, whether they will work, the reader will
decide for himself. But in whatever way these questions may be answered,
one particular, at all events, is certain, a book of this kind must be
worthless, if it is not in some sort autobiographical; while, if it is,
it may, possibly, be worth looking over. On no occasion, therefore, have
I hesitated to set down just what I thought and felt, being quite sure
that this is what every reasonable reader wishes every writer to do.
* * * * *
One more preliminary note. I was accompanied by my wife and stepson, the
little boy just now mentioned, who was between nine and ten years of
age. Switzerland was not new ground to any one of the three.
Occasionally a carriage was used. When that was not done I always
walked. My wife was on foot for about half the distance travelled over.
The little boy, when a carriage was not used, almost always rode. I give
these particulars in order that any family party, that might be disposed
to extract from the following pages a route for a single excursion,
might understand what they could do, and in what time and way it could
be done. The August and September of the excursion were those of last
year, 1872.
F. B. Z.
WHERSTEAD VICARAGE:
_January 16, 1873_.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
_To Zermatt_ 1