LUCERNE--ALPNACH--THROUGH UNTERWALDEN--MEIRINGEN--THE KIRCHET.
I could have better spared a better man.--SHAKESPEARE.
_August 23._--Yesterday, having spent some hours on the Rigi, we
had got to Lucerne with two or three hours of daylight still at our
disposal. I here found my _malle_ at the post office, to which I had
directed it eight days previously from Altorf: I now redirected it to
Lausanne. We walked over the town before dusk, and afterwards took a
second stroll to see the tourists sitting out in front of the large
hotels. They appeared to be chiefly Germans and Americans. The day
had been very warm; and at 8 o’clock it appeared as if those who were
remaining indoors could not be many.
There are several churches in Lucerne; and this morning I noticed, as I
was walking to and from Tivoli, that the clocks of all these churches
were keeping time with wonderful exactness. They went so well together,
that, in striking the hours and quarters, the last was but a very few
seconds behind the first. Is this uniformity the result of their all
being regulated and wound up by one authority? If so, will it be so
long? As Lucerne is not a town of poor and ignorant peasants, we may
suppose that before many years have passed, many of the better sort,
intellectually, will have joined the Old Catholic party, or, at all
events, will have refused to join the new church of the Infallibilists;
and will, therefore, have assumed the regulation of, at least, their
own church clocks.
I had gone to Tivoli for a swim in the lake. I found the place
more than half a mile distant from the town; and the bath-house
inconveniently small and very dilapidated. It seems unaccountable that
this should be the only provision of the kind for a population of
about 20,000, and for the many thousands of visitors who yearly stay
at the place. With this exception--the want, however, appears to be
one that is not felt, for at seven this morning I was the only person
using the bath-house--the people of Lucerne are doing all that they
can for their city. Their quays, bridges, streets, hotels, shops, all
show this. They are proud of their city, and have spent much money in
making it commodious and handsome. We here, in England, do little or
nothing of this kind for our towns; because with us the owners of the
land contiguous to a town do not reside in it, and can take no interest
in it. With us, therefore, a town--the exceptions are not many--has
become merely an agglomeration of workshops, and retail shops, and
public-houses, with the residences of the necessary complement of
professional men, everyone, however, of whom is determined to get
away from the town as soon as he can. If our system is the best, I am
sorry that it is so. I had rather see our towns centres of culture and
refinement; with more to please the eye, and with greater resources for
amusement.
After another excursion into the city this morning, we left Lucerne
at 10 A.M. by boat for Alpnach, which, in turn, we left by diligence
at 12. It would have been better to have turned out at 4 A.M., and
walked over Pilatus to Alpnach. This might have been done easily, and
I had thought of it; but had said nothing about it, knowing that I
should not be allowed to do it alone; and so Pilatus now stands over
for the chances of another day. The mob of tourists at Alpnach, and
the confusion among them, were worth seeing. The post office had to
provide for them all, for they had booked places at Lucerne, or on
board the boat, for Interlaken. They were, eventually, provided for by
two diligences, and ten _supplementaires_. The senior conductor of the
two diligences had to arrange all these good people according to their
crotchets and parties, and the nature of the means at his disposal.
Some would not be separated from their friends. Some were not averse
to separation. Some would not go in a diligence. Some would go in
the _coupé_, if they could. Some would not go in a _supplementaire_,
supposing that the diligences would go first. In this, however, they
were mistaken, for the officer in command was too old a soldier to
allow any of his army of carriages to be in his rear, and wisely,
therefore, throughout the day, kept them all before him.
On such an occasion, as on many others in travelling, when many
people have to struggle, or think they must, for accommodation, it is
amusing to observe the diversity of idiosyncrasies. One man knows the
world, and is as cool as a cucumber. It is not worth while putting
himself out. He knows that, if he did, he would gain nothing by it.
Another takes it for granted that the conductor, who has to go through
precisely the same scene every day of his life, knows nothing at all
about his business. A third announces, with a display of self-command
and assumption of profundity, that everybody in the country is in a
conspiracy to cheat and plunder travellers. Some are impressively
polite, and hope to gain their point by soft words. Others, who have
a low opinion of mankind, put their trust in francs. Some wear a look
of helpless resignation. Others, who are of the lucifer-match kind,
but not of the kind that ignites only on the box--that is to say,
in their own homes, where they have a right to be fiery--explode at
once. Collision with anything puts them in a flame. And now you amuse
yourself with the way in which they are blazing up, if you are not
thereby at all scorched yourself.
At last, all these different specimens of humanity having been provided
with seats, just as they would have been had not one of them spoken a
word, we got under weigh--an imposing procession of twelve carriages.
The horses in some of the _supplementaires_ had been shockingly
overworked. The constant straining up hill had so changed the form of
their visage, that it was scarcely equine. On noticing this to the
conductor, he was of opinion that it would not have been so had they
been Swiss horses; they were French horses that had been left behind
by Bourbaki’s army; and the effect had resulted from their having been
put to work which they had not been used to, and for which they were
unfit; but that it was a matter of no great consequence, for the work
was killing them fast.
For the two miles beyond Sarnen, there was evidence of how shallow in
a Swiss prairie is, generally, the film of good soil. Since I passed
by on foot, two or three weeks back, a violent storm-gust had swept
over this space, and had thrown down scores of fruit trees. In every
instance their roots, which, it appeared, were quite superficial, had
lifted the good black soil, and exposed, beneath, the fragments of
white rock, on which the soil, to the depth of nowhere more than two
feet, had been superimposed, in great part by the industry of many
generations of peasants, who had removed the superficial fragments of
rock and levelled the good surface. At Eywyl my wife and myself left
the _diligence_, and walked to Lungern, five miles. I again descended
at the foot of the Brünig, and walked to the top.
I here saw a black squirrel, the only living wild quadruped I met with
during this excursion. Of wild birds also there is to an English eye
a surprising dearth in Switzerland. This results in some measure from
everyone being allowed to carry a gun, and to use it at all seasons for
the destruction of any feathered, or four-footed wild creature that
may come in his way; but chiefly from the length of the winter, and
dearth of insects, and of plants bearing such seeds and fruits as, at
that season, might supply food for birds. During this excursion the
only birds I saw were, on several occasions, on open high ground, a
solitary little chirper, probably of the finch kind; one jay in the
wood--the Aletschwald--on the west side of the Rieder Alp, just above
the Aletsch glacier; one coot in a reedy pool in the Valais; a flock
of a dozen, or so, rooks eating grapes in a vineyard near Vevey; some
gulls on the lake of Geneva; a small covey of red-legged partridges in
the valley of the Tessin; in some few towns a few sparrows; and in some
a few swallows: no very long catalogue for the distance travelled over.
It is a strange thing that you see bee-hives everywhere, but rarely
meet with a bee. The whole of the honey, however, that is consumed by
travellers in Switzerland is not the product of this little ill-used
hymenopteron; for there is, at all events, one factory in a lofty
out-of-the-way retreat in the Canton de Vaud--the Swiss are a very
ingenious people--where it is produced without insect aid.
We were to sleep at Meiringen: but we found it necessary to go to
Brienz, several miles beyond the point on the Brünig where the road
branches off to Meiringen, in order to get a private carriage to take
us to Meiringen. Just on this part of our way we had to pass through
what to those who are unaccustomed to any but English rain-falls would
have appeared a surprisingly dark and heavy storm. While we were
leaving the _diligence_ at Brienz the darkness and this rain-fall were
at their height.
In half an hour the rain had ceased, and our carriage came round to
the door of the hotel. My engagement with Ammer was now ended. As I
took his hand, and expressed a parting wish for his welfare, his last
words were, ‘Sir, if you write a book, put me into it.’ That was not
the moment when a man could say no to the harmless request of one
who had been his companion for three weeks; and so he returned to
Interlaken, to look out for another engagement, in the belief that
his request would be complied with. I must, therefore, attempt his
portrait. Here it is. He was a tall, bony man, with a long face and
grave expression. His talk was that of one who is by nature of an easy
simple disposition, but to whom experience has taught that this is a
world in which a man must take care of himself. He would rather not
have had to do this; but he acquiesced in the necessity of doing it.
As to his knowledge of English, he naturally, and allowably enough,
overrated it. It was travellers’ English only: nothing more; but for
that purpose sufficient. For the only purpose I had in view in engaging
him, it was of little or no use. Still, notwithstanding, I held him
to be worth his eight francs a day. His polyglot, or rather piebald,
or, to be precise, his tortoiseshell, of German, French, and English
was, at times, an amusing form of speech. The predominant idea in his
mind, the mother idea that gave birth to all others, the focal point
to which all lines of thought converged, was that there was nothing
in the world like francs. As most of us do, he read others by the
light of the knowledge he had of himself. He, therefore, always went
on the supposition that nothing could so enhance the merit of his
services as some scheme for saving me a franc. This, in his ideas of
the scale of duty, came first; and he would be overwhelmed with deep
disappointment, mingled with humiliation, whenever, in dealing with
porters, _voituriers_, hotel-keepers, &c., I took matters into my
own hands, and did not allow him to make arrangements for effecting
this saving. His uncomfortable feelings, however, on these occasions
were quickly dissipated by the offering of a cigar--in extreme cases,
of two--which he readily accepted, as implying an amount of general
approval, friendliness, and liberality sufficient to salve the wound
and kill its smart. If I made some small pecuniary acknowledgment he
was disposed to think uncalled for, or did not make a reclamation he
thought might have been successful, the light that was within him
began to be dimmed with uncertainties and confusion. His accustomed
landmarks were disappearing. The scent was being lost. He was off the
line: the wheels were revolving, but there was no going forward. When
at the Hôtel de Ville at Altorf I gave the official a franc for the few
square inches of spongy paper, with a few figures printed upon it, his
difficulties of this kind culminated. Was I a lunatic or a millionaire?
The easiest conclusion--that to which he came--was that I was something
of both. ‘There is not,’ he said, meditatively, ‘a man in Uri who would
have given that franc for a large volume.’ And then, more confidently,
as if he saw, or fancied he saw, a ray of light, ‘But the English are
very rich.’ This solution he frequently, afterwards, reverted to. ‘No,’
I would always reply, ‘not so rich as the Swiss, for they can afford
to give twice as much as the English for a thousand klafters of land.’
Out of this economical puzzle he could never see his way. The evening
before we started he decided that he would draw his pay in one sum, at
the conclusion of the engagement. I had proposed to him that he should
receive it in weekly payments. He soon, however, began to draw upon
me for ten francs at a time. So that, when we had reached Brienz he
had, by these payments on account, received a third of the whole. As
he knew that I was aware that he must have, originally, taken with him
enough for his personal wants, he always gave for these applications,
accompanied with many apologies, the reason that he wished to make
some additions to his wardrobe. To this, however, I never saw that any
additions were made; for his little water-proof _sac_ was always empty;
and he returned home in the same clothes, the same billy-cock felt
hat, and the same boots in which he had originally set out--all rather
marked objects of their kind. I was obliged, therefore, to come to the
conclusion, that these successive draughts on account had no purpose
but the satisfaction he would receive from having some of the francs
in his own actual keeping. If on any occasion he was charged a few
cents more than he had expected, or if his dinner and supper had not,
in some way or other, been manipulated into my account, for upon this
point he was never sufficiently clear, his solemn denunciations, and
feeling reprobation, of this strange form of baseness were invariably
concluded with the apothegm--I soon knew when to look for it--‘_Il y
a des voleurs partout._’ This was always announced in precisely the
same tone, and with the same heart-chuckle, as if he were announcing a
discovery combining the greatest profundity with the greatest novelty,
which had just, at that moment, flashed into his own mind, for the
first time in the philosophic observation of mankind.
It was his habit to make the Valaisans, on all occasions where it was
possible, and at times, too, when the ground of the remark was not
discoverable, a butt for the shaft of a depreciatory comparison. If,
for instance, we anywhere saw a boy in a pair of _sabots_, he would
say, ‘In the Valais the ladies wear _sabots_: they only cost them
half-a-franc, and last through a summer and winter.’ If he saw the land
anywhere ill-cultivated, or a forest ill-managed, or anything done
clumsily, wastefully, or neglectfully, he would say, ‘That is arranged
badly; that is how it is arranged in the Valais.’ If I talked to him
about schools, he would say, ‘We have schools everywhere: but in the
Valais they do not teach much.’ I would ask him, ‘Why?’ He would reply,
‘You must ask the priests.’ If we came up with a flock of goats on a
mountain pasture, or by the roadside, he would say, ‘The Valaisans keep
goats in their forests, to destroy the young trees.’
There was a mystery about his Sunday apparel. On that day his flannel
shirt was doffed, and he would appear in a clean hempen shirt, and with
a new pair of thick, apparently homespun, woollen trousers, neither
of which was it possible for him to have had on the week days, before
or afterwards. I must, therefore, suppose that he hired, or borrowed,
them for the occasion. When in any little matter I would go my own
way, and not his, I was soon prepared for what would come; and knew,
when it came, precisely what it meant; for, on such conjunctures, he
would never fail to announce, with a tone of sorrowful submission,
‘It is of your opinion.’ When he was utterly in the dark as to some
question I was putting to him, and, evidently, knew nothing about the
matter, he would assume, suddenly, the air of a man who has, by a happy
inspiration of the moment, unriddled some ancient world-puzzle. The
whole solution was, in every case, precisely the same, for it was all
contained in the never-failing oracular utterance of the single word,
‘Infallibly,’ accompanied with a fixed look and solemn nod.
I held him at the time to be, and still hold him to have been, cheap
at the money. He belongs to a bygone order of things, to the old Swiss
world, in which a franc was a large object for contemplation, enough to
occupy a man’s thoughts, and to satisfy his heart, and most days quite
out of reach. He represents a class of guides that was formed before
Alpinism had been evolved; and before streams of travellers had brought
into Alpine villages streams of gold--a commodity then only known by
report, and which in those valleys no eye had yet beheld. The old and
the new experiences are, in his mind, in conflict. No guide on the
sunny side of fifty can be like him. Travellers, who are, themselves,
on the shady side of those figures, will be reminded by him of the
slow and cautious world they once knew; and he will help them to
measure how different is the world in which they now are.
We had, then, said our adieux to Ammer, and were now on our way to
Meiringen. I observed that the horses we met on the road had dry hoofs;
and when we had got a little more than three miles from Brienz the
dust was flying; so confined had been the area of the heavy mountain
storm, in which we had reached Brienz. We entered Meiringen just as
the evening lights were beginning to show through the windows of the
village, and of the neighbouring scattered _châlets_. The labours of
the day were done, and families were again reunited to talk over its
little events, before going to rest. We stopped at the door of the
Reichenbach Hotel. We had been there last year, and had been satisfied
with our reception. It is about half a mile from the village, near the
foot of the mountain. A little stream passes by it; I believe through
it. Its _entourage_ is of garden-ground, turf, and trees.
I may mention that the manager of this hotel showed me, by reference
to his books, that he was paying the commune twenty-five cents a
klafter for good garden-ground, and twelve cents for ground of inferior
quality. Another Meiringen man told me that good land was letting from
twenty to thirty cents a klafter. There are 1,400 klafters in an acre.
Twenty-five cents a klafter is, therefore, 14_l._ an acre. These hotels
must have vegetables. This high rent, however, does not matter much to
those tenants, who are proprietors of hotels, for they can recompense
themselves for it through the medium of the little notes they present
to their visitors.
_August 24._--It was Sunday. We went twice to the English church.
It is a new structure; and was erected at the expense of an English
clergyman. The services I was glad to see were well attended. As the
fashion, in which they were conducted, is a public matter, it is
fairly open to comment; I may, therefore, say of them, and which, of
course, those who direct them wish should be seen and known, that
they were done in the ritualistic style. Those, who are far advanced
in the direction of this style, might, perhaps, say of them only,
that they showed a tendency towards ritualism. Personally, I am not
annoyed at this fashion of conducting the service, any more than I
am at witnessing an attempt to create the spiritual excitement, with
which the opposite party in the Church has familiarized us; but, as it
is presented to us for the very purpose of influencing, or obtruded
upon us for the very purpose of challenging, our ideas and opinions,
I am quite at liberty to say of it, that I think it, at least, as
much of a mistake as the other. Still, as the embodiment of a _bonâ
fide_ opinion, or theory, it is entitled to be treated as such, that
is to say to be met not with outcry and denunciation, but with facts
and arguments. Now I am disposed to think, though, indeed, this is
not the place for going into the facts and arguments, that neither
of these two parties could have helped itself. Each works according
to its light, and with the materials, that is to say the amount of
knowledge, and kind of ideas, it possesses. And as, too, not far from
all of those, to whom each has to address itself, are in the same
mental condition as the leaders themselves of these parties, or are
ready to be brought into it, little else can, at the moment, be done.
We may, therefore, be almost disposed to say, So far well. Still we
ought to keep in mind that religion must have, if it be any thing
_in rerum naturâ_, a body of absolute truth. Now an induction from
all religions appears to demonstrate the fact that the substance and
body of religion is morality. And by the same process we come to the
conclusion that its morality does not differ specifically from the
ordinary forms and divisions of morality, as for instance that which
is the regulation of the family, or that which is the regulation of
society. Its morality does not differ specifically from these, or from
any branches of morality, because it includes them all. Still it has
a differentia; otherwise it would be only a synonyme for morality;
and that differentia is its motive. It is the moral life, in all its
relations, modified by, and practised from, motives drawn from the
idea of a future life, or of there being a moral Governor of the
world. This is religion in its simplest expression. This it is that
makes it something _in rerum naturâ_; gives it existence; and has
made it a power in all times, and among all races of men. The more
distinctly men see, or even feel this, the more powerfully they are
attracted to it; for this it is that reveals to them its nature and
its uses, and enlists on its behalf the understanding and the moral
sentiments, accompanied with immediate satisfaction, and the hope of
better things to come. Anything which obscures the perception of this
weakens its power. Now one of the parties, of which we have just made
mention, obscures the perception of this simple and mighty truth by a
veil of forms, and by what it calls reverence. It thus metamorphoses,
and lowers religion. As respects its ministers and exponents; it puts
the priest in the place of the prophet. As respects the wealthy, the
luxurious, and the self-indulgent; it encourages them in substituting
for religion these forms, and this reverence, which are so far from
being religion that they may co-exist with that which is its most
complete contradiction. And as to the ignorant; it attracts them;
though, of course, not morally, but theatrically: for it is delightful
to them to find religion so like a stage-play; that is to say something
that is pleasant to look at, not something that is to regulate the
whole inner and external life. The other party obscures the same
great truth by a veil of sentimental excitement, and of exaggerated,
factitious spiritualism. These, as they are not the actual things the
human soul wants in this matter, cannot, of course, be maintained; and
must, after a time, die away, if not in individuals, yet inevitably in
bodies of men. And this accounts for the reaction from the teaching of
this party, which is now going on before our eyes; and which, as it
goes on, enables us to see how little, that is substantial and real, it
has effected, except in the way of preparing us for what is real and
substantial.
Both these parties were, under the circumstances of the times,
unavoidable. But the aims and methods of both are, nevertheless, to
a great extent, untrue; and, therefore, to a certain extent, and in
a sense, mischievous. They have not sought first the kingdom of God,
which is morality shaped and motived by the idea of a future life,
or of there being a moral Governor of the world. With respect to the
theory, and practice of the ritualistic party, we may be sure that
there will be a reaction from them, just as they are themselves an
incident of the reaction from the theory and practice of the opposite
party. For ten, or even twenty, years we may not see it, but we must
see it sooner or later. And those who choose to look at what is now
going on will be able to anticipate, probably with some degree of
accuracy, the direction the coming reaction will take; because what
is to be, can be produced only by what now is. Those, who resort to
this kind of divination, will see that, as both ritualism, and the
so-called evangelicalism, so far as they are moral and religious, are
efforts, only in unhistoric and unphilosophic minds, to attain to
truth and reality; and as even in the outside world, which is neither
ritualistic, nor evangelical, the same effort is being vigorously
made; therefore the reaction, whenever it may come, will be in the
direction of what all are desiring, and in search of, that is to say
of truth, and reality. History, and philosophy will not be ignored.
On the contrary: their authority will supersede that of men who were
unhistoric, and unphilosophic. And, then, perhaps, the idea of religion
that underlies, and is embodied in, the Sermon on the Mount, which is
neither ritualistic, nor evangelical, will have its turn, again, once
more, after so many centuries: and this will be only a reversion to
that primitive conception of Christianity, which was what sent it forth
conquering, and to conquer.
The source, then, and the forms of the mistakes we have been speaking
of, are in our view of these matters, to be ascribed entirely to want
of knowledge, both in those who had to lead, and in those who had
to be led. We can say this without being disposed in any degree to
blame either the one, or the other: for want of knowledge of the kind
needed is an ever-recurring phenomenon; because it is an incident of
progress. Those, who see this, ought to be satisfied with the faith
they may have in knowledge. It must come; and, when it comes, it must
have its due effect. There never, in the whole history of the world,
has been a time in which, or a people among whom, religion has not
been the expression of knowledge which has always, and everywhere,
modified it, and necessarily in the direction of lifting it up to its
own level. This is its highest, and its main use; for religion is the
harmonizing, and the systematizing, of all the knowledge men have at
any time attained to, both of nature and of man, for the most practical
of all purposes--that of enlightening, guiding, purifying, elevating,
and strengthening the moral life.
* * * * *
Before the evening service we walked to the Kirchet, perhaps a mile and
a half up the valley, to see the old deserted ravine channel of the
Aare. This is well worth a visit, even by those on whose minds such
a sight will leave impressions only of strangeness and novelty. The
Kirchet is a hill, that, just above Meiringen, runs completely athwart
the Haslithal. It is said to be 800 feet high. Above it, therefore,
the valley must have been, at some remote period, a lake, as far up
as would be requisite for bringing its head to the level of the 800
feet of this bar, which formed its foot. At that time the overflow
of the lake, instead of going straight over the Kirchet, when it had
reached the summit, somewhere about the middle of it, made an angle on
the summit, which is broad and flat, and then took a course along it
to the north-east. In this course along the summit, it cut for itself
a rapidly descending ravine passage, down to the foot of the lofty
mountain that here rises above the Kirchet. At this point, that is
to say at the foot of the mountain, the ravine channel made a second
sharply defined right angle, and proceeded then almost due north to
Meiringen along the line of the junction of the Kirchet and the eastern
mountain.
There must, however, in times of floods and freshets, have been in
those early days a subsidiary channel all along the foot of the eastern
mountain. This was ever deepening itself, as all channels do. Perhaps
it could only carry on this work in times of floods and freshets. At
last it deepened itself to such a degree as to produce two very notable
effects. One was that of draining the lake, and so of laying dry the
broad bottom land where Im Hof now stands. The other was that of
rendering useless the old channel of the north-eastern half of the axis
of the Kirchet. The new channel is straight, and at right angles to the
old one. This cutting off of bends and angles is what river channels
are constantly engaged in doing. The only difference here is that,
the old channel being in hard rock, the lapse of untold centuries has
not in the slightest degree obliterated, or defaced, the earlier work
of the Aare. The old ravine channel is just as clear, and as sharply
defined, as it was on the day upon which the last waning streamlet
from the Aare trickled over its bed, and then died away; and the whole
outflow of Haslithal took the way of the new channel, which it has
retained to this day.
As you go down the steep, narrow, deep descent of this old watercourse,
so narrow and so deep that, at times, the rocks completely meet
overhead and the sky above is shut out, you read its history more
rapidly and more plainly than you can on this page. There are the
clear, perpendicular, rock walls, right and left, at most only two or
three yards apart; their sides water-worn, with edges here and there
rounded off, and in some places hemispherical holes excavated in the
rock, where some fracture, or soft spot, had enabled the old torrent to
work at an advantage. Beneath your feet, in the long staircase of the
ravine--the bed of the old channel--are the loose rocks, just as they
were left; some much worn, that had been there, beneath the rushing
tumbling torrent, for a long time; some not much worn, that had been
brought in not long before the Aare withdrew to the new channel; all
worn only on their surface and their upstream side. Everywhere between
these rocks is the clean sand, just as it was left, washed clean,
thousands of years ago. And when you get to the bottom of the old
ravine, there, before you, is the Aare of to-day, thundering by in the
new ravine it has cut for itself, exactly at right angles to the old
deserted ravine, at the mouth of which you are standing. And here, at
this point, down in the bowels of the mountain, is a charming little
beach of white sand, two or three yards wide, and a dozen or so yards
long, of precisely the same sand as that you have been stepping over in
your descent of the old ravine.
Who could stand on this little marge of sand unmoved? It is a point
of contact between the distant days--represented by the deserted
channel--when the valley above you was a broad and long lake, and your
own day--represented by the channel now in use--when, 800 feet below
what had been, in the first period, the surface of the old lake, is now
the site of the busy and thriving community of Im Hof. Here you are
reminded of what was the old, and humanly unrecorded state of things;
and are enabled to understand what brought about the existing state of
things, and how it brought it about. The old torrent played its part by
the slow but unfailing exercise of the rock-eroding power, with which
running water had been invested from the beginning of things; and the
existing torrent, as it rushes by before you, is, you see, playing
the same part in the working of the world-organism--the part it has
been playing, without failing or rest, for no one can say how many
thousands of years; which, however, only began to run their course,
when the thousands of years of the old channel had ended theirs. You
are even carried, in the process of thought, beyond the world-organism
to the world-organiser, who impressed on matter its properties, modes
of action, uses, and relations. As these visions pass before you, and
these thoughts form themselves, the nerves of your mind are thrilled
with an emotion, that will make that little marge of sand, at the
juncture of the old with the new ravine, deep down in the bowels of the
mountain, ever to you a memorable spot.