BRIEG--THE VALAIS--LAUSANNE AND GIBBON--DETAILS AND PLAN OF THE
EXCURSION--CONCLUSION.
Accuse not nature; she hath done her part:
Do thou but thine; and be not diffident
Of wisdom: she deserts thee not, if thou
Dismiss not her.--MILTON.
_August 29._--We had thought of ascending the Sparrenhorn this morning:
but now the aspect of things forbad such an undertaking. The Bell
Alp was in the clouds. At such altitudes this means damp, rawness,
shivering: nothing to see, and nothing to do. At 10 o’clock things were
no better, and there was no prospect of their getting better; and so we
decided to say our adieu to our good host, and to go down to Brieg. He
had done for us all he could, having put up for us three beds in what
had been intended for the _fumoir_ of his hotel, but which cannot, in
the height of the season, be afforded for such a purpose.
Brieg was reached in three hours. A descent of so many, it is five
thousand, feet must be more or less good, and Alpine in character.
Although it may not have anything particularly striking, still it must
have upland pastures and pine woods, rills and rocks, prairies, first
without and then with orchards: and there must always be mountains in
sight, besides the one you are descending.
This was our last walk. In the conclusion of what has for some time
been giving pleasure there is sadness: and more so when the pleasure
has been of the stirring, and not of the Sybarite kind. If at the
moment we had thought of the Sybarite’s case, we should have said that
he had no business to be a Sybarite, and was rightly served. Certainly
the entrance into Brieg, after the Eggischhorn and the Bell Alp,
appeared heinously lowland and hatefully alluvial. Within the town the
shops, the pavements, the diligences, the churches, the Post Office
proclaimed to us that our delightful wanderings had only brought us
back again to what seemed for the moment like the pestilent prose of
life. For us henceforth would be no more summons from the sun, watched
for, and obeyed with a ready mind, to meet him on the mountain side;
no more, the day through, should we walk before him; no more should
we contemplate with contentment the glories of his withdrawal to give
the needed rest to man and beast. For us no more trudging on, hour
after hour, to see we knew not precisely what, with the feeling that,
though it might not be particularly worth seeing when we had come to
it, still that it was well worth while going to see it. No more grand
views of snow-fields and ice-rivers. No more of nature’s battlemented
and pinnacled ramparts and castles far above us while the storm was
raging far below us. No more pleasant halts at mountain _châlets_, or
on the turf by the huddling streamlet, in such haste to get down to the
valley. No more turning into wayside inns, not knowing what we were
to find in them except a welcome. No more hunger and thirst. No more
ice-cold draughts from sparkling springs. Our Switzer days and doings
had now ended; and we were returning to regular hours, regular work,
morning calls, eight o’clock dinners, and the manners and customs of
the latter part of the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
In the afternoon, as we walked along the embankment of the Saltine,
we cast some longing lingering looks on the Bell Alp and the snow
about it; and, too, on the opposite snow-fields, right and left of
the Simplon. After this, while loafing about the streets, we found
ourselves opposite the shop of the Barber of Brieg, whose record is
in the ‘Month’ of last year--the undisputed monarch, in the barber
department, of all that he surveys in Brieg. There was no resisting
the desire to see him again: at all events he was my only acquaintance
in the place. His door, as I opened it, rang his shop-bell, but he
was not there to hear it. This was what I had expected. I should have
been disappointed had it been otherwise. The woman, however, who keeps
the little grocery shop opposite, and with whom last year I had had,
seated on the bench by her doorside, half an hour’s talk, while her
bibulous neighbour was being looked for, heard the bell and came out
of her shop. There was a smile on her face to imply that the little
event of last year was not at all forgotten. Indeed, she looked as if
she had been expecting me, and was glad to see me. In anticipation,
it must have been, of my turning up that evening, he had told her in
which of his resorts he might be found. It was close by, and he was
soon unearthed. Of course, I thought it better to be shaved now by my
old acquaintance than to have to shave myself early to-morrow morning.
The good woman, who had not forgotten that morning of last year, will
henceforth be able to add to the weight of metal in her gibes the
evening of this day.
_August 30._--Were off by the first diligence for Sierre, where we
were to take the train _en correspondance_ for Lausanne. The day was
bright; there was none of the dust of last year; and the drive down
the valley was pleasant. Was it not the valley of the Rhone? And were
there not the lateral confluent valleys to note, with thoughts of what
they led up to and of where their streams came from? And then there was
the aspect of things in the valley itself; the evident air of neglect
and of waste of opportunity. We could see that we were now in the most
improvable and least improved part of Switzerland. We passed through
tracts in which every particle of _humus_ had been washed out of and
floated off from the soil by the permitted overflow of the freshets
of the Rhone; and through others which were still willow thickets and
marshes. If the Rhone were embanked, as is the Aare, the Linth, and
many other Swiss streams, all this land might be reclaimed: the shingle
and sand, now naked, might soon be converted into goodly meadows by
spreading over them a little earth, and by irrigation, for irrigation
in Switzerland will produce good grass anywhere. And besides, if the
Rhone were embanked, then there would be everywhere the possibility
of utilizing its stream for spinning and weaving. And this will come
here, the priests notwithstanding, for it will come in every valley of
Switzerland. It is ‘the manifest destiny’ of the country. The first
step will be the continuance of the railway to Brieg, and through the
Simplon. This will bring cotton, silk, and wool to be worked up, and
will take it to market when worked up. It will bring the machinery, and
the iron wanted for repairs, and the coal that will be required both in
making the repairs, and for supplementing any deficiency in the water
power. All this can be done, and will be done. And then those of the
population, as with the land, who are improvable will be improved; and
those among the former who are not improvable will be improved from the
scene.
Another advantage that will result from the coming state of things
will be that the larger, and busier, and more active-minded population
of the future will be better fed than the existing population. In
exchange for the fruits of their labour they will then have brought
to them good wheaten bread and beef and mutton. At present the staple
food here is, as you see, maize and potatoes, somewhat fortified and
corrected by their acid wine and rough brandy. This is not the kind of
food that such a climate requires. It enfeebles mind as well as body;
and these enfeeblements include that of morality.
The history of these matters is instructive, and ought to be noted.
Of course there must have been a time, before the advent of maize
and potatoes, when wheat was largely cultivated in the Lower Valais.
Doubtless the yield was not great, and what there was must have been
of very inferior quality. Still home-grown wheat must then have been
the mainstay of the people. Maize and potatoes, when time brought
them, were found to be more productive, and more to be relied upon in
such a locality: and so they have superseded wheat almost entirely.
In some other districts, which, while they are more industrious, have
also attained to the advantage of easy access to wheat markets, the
culture of grass has superseded that of wheat. Their inhabitants,
by converting their abundant grass crops into cheese and beef, have
obtained the means, from the same extent of ground, and with less
labour, for procuring a larger amount of wheat, and of far better
quality, than they could have grown at home. This is precisely what was
done in the case of the few vineyards which once were cultivated in the
south of England. There was a time, when from their immature grapes
was produced, at a great cost, very bad wine. It would then, from the
deficiencies and uncertainties of transit, have been very difficult to
have got wine from beyond sea. Besides, too, there was not much to be
given in exchange for it. But the time came when it would cost little
to convey from beyond sea what was better than the home produce; and
when there were markets for the wheat, and meat, and wool that could
be produced at home; and this gave also the means for purchasing the
better produce of foreign vineyards. English vineyards, therefore, and
their sour, costly, and uncertain produce disappeared. The power of the
Rhone at present, like the unutilized powers of an uncultivated and
unregulated intellect, not only goes to waste, but also does harm: when
it shall have been turned to account it will--railway communication
also by that time having come to be more fully carried out, and the
principles of free trade more generally understood and acted on--give
the millers and bakers of the Valais the means for making their
purchases in the corn markets of Germany, France, and Italy: and the
people of the Valais will be all the better for it.
In the Valais, as elsewhere, throughout our excursion, I noticed how
great had been this year, in Switzerland, the failure of the fruit
crop. This had been caused by a very severe late frost, the effect of
which we had felt in the same way, almost to an equal extent, in many
parts of England: though here, of course, a diminution of that crop
is a matter of comparatively little moment. Except in the valley of
the Tessin, on the south side of the Alps, I did not see any fruit on
the walnut trees, though I looked for it whenever I passed one. As in
Switzerland they are grown largely for the sake of the oil expressed
from the nut--the produce of a fair-sized tree is, in average years,
worth about six francs--the loss on this item alone of the fruit crop
was very considerable. I observed that the foliage of the fruitless
trees was unusually luxuriant, and that the foliage of those that had
fruit in the valley of the Tessin was not by half so abundant, nor was
what they had of so dark a green as that of the barren trees to the
north. It was just the reverse with the cherry trees. They also had
been smitten by the frost, and they had been hit so hard that many
were dead, but nowhere, except on the Rigi, did I see any with healthy
foliage. The crop, too, of apples and pears was sadly deficient. Most
trees of these kinds were entirely without fruit. Those which had some
fruit were, as it was generally easy to see, sheltered in some way or
other, frequently by some lofty, partially overhanging walnut-tree.
Fruit enters so largely into the total of Swiss industry, that we can
readily suppose that the late frosts and snowfalls of 1873 must have
cost the peasants some millions of francs.
We reached Lausanne late in the afternoon. Our first care was to get
our heavy baggage from the Post Office. I had had mine with me for
only so short a time at the commencement of the Month, and had made so
little use of any part of it, that I was now almost disposed to think
that it would have been as well had I not encumbered myself with it.
As, however, one cannot tell what may occur in the way of weather, and
of possible mishaps of many kinds, it is as well, to some extent, to
be provided with duplicates and supernumeraries. The best limitation
perhaps is that of what you can easily lift, and carry yourself, in and
out of railway stations.
_August 31._--Sunday.--We attended morning service in the chief church
of the town. If anything can be inferred from a single sermon, one
might suppose, from what we heard this morning, that the Swiss Reformed
Church at Lausanne is in the stage in which we were when Blair’s
Sermons were in high estimation and were passing through many editions.
In the afternoon we formed part of an English congregation that was
addressed by an English clergyman in the same church.
In the evening we went down to Ouchy to walk, on the margin of the
lake, in the beautiful grounds of the Beaurivage Hotel. We saw in
several places the water rising and subsiding through holes it had
lately formed in the pavement of the marginal terrace walk. It had been
able to effect this in consequence of the level of the lake being this
year so much higher than usual that the wash of its waves was able to
undermine what had hitherto been out of their reach. Was this elevation
of the lake caused by the unusual amount of snow that fell late last
spring, at the time when so much injury was done to the fruit trees?
There is everywhere this year more snow on the mountains than usual.
This must make the streams also, that descend from them, fuller than
usual, which must therefore bring more water than usual into the lake.
There are, however, in this lake some elevations and subsidences of its
level, which cannot be accounted for by such causes as that to which I
have just referred.
_September 1._--In the forenoon we walked on the fine terrace to the
west of the Hotel Gibbon. After a time I took a seat upon a bench on
the gravel beneath the lofty elms. Before me was the lake. On the
two or three acres of grass behind the trees were some English lads
playing at football. I seated myself on the bench, I suppose because I
was thinking of Gibbon, and wished to look upon the view he had often
looked upon. I repeated, as he gives them in his autobiographical
memoirs, two of the most interesting passages in literary history:[3]
one being that in which he records that the idea of his great work
‘first started to his mind at Rome on the 15th of October, 1764, as
he sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed
fryars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter;’ and the other
that in which he describes its completion, within a few months of
twenty-three years afterwards, near the spot on which I was seated:
‘It was on the day, or rather night of the 27th of June, 1787, between
the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the
last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen
I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which
commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The
air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon
was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not
dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and,
perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled,
and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had
taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that
whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
historian must be short and precarious.’ It was a right instinct that
led him to record both the conception of the idea, and the conclusion,
of his great work. M. Guizot, no mean judge of such work, says that
it is the only true book in the English language; the only book we
have which contains a grand idea worthily worked out. Regarded in this
light it almost stands in a class of its own, as the grandest piece of
literary work the human mind has ever elaborated. It is great in its
subject; human history supplies nothing greater. It is great in the
vast amount of labour expended in preparing and shaping the materials
requisite for its construction. It is great in its style. It is great
in the breadth of view it takes, and in the philosophic spirit with
which it is animated. Such a combination of the sources of literary
greatness, and each element in so high a degree, are not to be found
in any other book. Other books may be named which have given a greater
amount of, and more intense pleasure. The Homeric poems doubtless did
this, when they formed well-nigh all the intellectual food of the most
sensitive-minded of all people. Others may have done more to enrich
thought and to humanize hearts. This the dramas of Shakespeare have
done: which show, too, the fertility and creative power of the human
mind to a degree as far beyond Gibbon’s capacity as was the philosophic
insight of Aristotle or Bacon. And other historians, as Thucydides, may
have had more appreciative sagacity for dealing with the characters of
those who cross the scene of their pages. Still there is in Gibbon’s
book a comprehensiveness, a massiveness, a grandeur, alike of subject
and of treatment, which make it one of the greatest of literary
monuments. It is so great a work that the spot on which its last
sentence was written, and of which Gibbon records that he penned it
there, adding particulars that much enhance the interest of the record,
will be regarded, so long as his ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’
shall be read, as classical ground in literary history.
How strange that a mind of such capacity for labour, such farness of
reach, such power of grasp, should have been encased in, and had to
work with so uncouth a body. In my younger days I had an old friend
who had known Gibbon well. I often asked him what he recollected of
him: but I never got from him anything more than that he was fond of
whist, though not a good player; very awkward in his movements; and
shockingly ugly. One can imagine that this very ungainliness of form
and feature was, in some respects, advantageous to him intellectually.
Being physically excluded from those fields of ordinary rivalry in
which strength and external beauty win, he was as it were obliged to
turn to those in which intellect only can take a part. He almost,
to some extent, belonged to that class of men of whom Bacon remarks
that they are greatly daring, in order to show that in that respect,
at all events, they are the equals of those whose bodily endowments
are superior to their own. If he could have taken a part in such
vigorous sports as those lads were engaged in who at the moment were
struggling and shouting behind me, would his great work ever have been
accomplished? Possibly not.
It belonged to Gibbon’s age to take a low view of man. But there is
a peculiarity in the lowness of the view he took, which may in some
degree have received its colouring from the cause I have just referred
to. Had he been physically a better man, he would have read men and
women with more sympathy and kindliness; and therefore with more
sagacity. Some traces there are, I think, of Pope’s crooked back,
and of Byron’s club-foot, in their poetry. So there are, I think, of
Gibbon’s ugliness and ungainliness in his great history.
But the main point is, what effect has this history had in the world
of thought? As its subject, its learning, its style, its length
prevent its ever getting into the hands of the generality of readers,
on them it can only act at second hand. It must come to them through
the minds of the comparatively few who can think, to some extent, for
themselves. Now I am disposed to hold that the effect it has on such
minds, if at all of the first order, is far from being bad. In them
it cannot but deepen the love of truth and virtue, and enlarge the
estimate they would otherwise have been disposed to form of the value
of comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and honesty in literary work. And
may we not say something of the same kind of that other great literary
worker also, who was in many respects not wholly unlike Gibbon: at
all events in having lived and worked on the shores of this lake, and
in this town of Lausanne. As I looked out from this terrace over the
blue expanse below, with Gibbon and Voltaire in my mind, I thought
it not improbable that the day might come when it will be seen that
their faults belonged to their age, and to the conditions under which
their work was done. Society, if its regeneration was to be attempted,
required then, first of all, the clearance of many inveterate, strong,
and poisonous overgrowths. This in a coarse age could hardly have been
effected except by coarse means. These workers appeared to be aiming
at the destruction both of the noxious overgrowths, and of the soil
out of which they grew. Fortunately, however, that was impossible. The
soil can support either a noxious or a wholesome growth, but cannot
itself be destroyed. It ever remains, ready to support either growth,
according to the degree of neglect or care, and the kind of culture
applied to it. Under the evil conditions of those times the better
culture could hardly have been the prominent idea. The clearance of
what was noxious alone appeared either possible or desirable. At all
events, in a coarse age those who coarsely assailed hypocrisy and
injustice were worlds better than those who coarsely lived in and by
hypocrisy and injustice. We must remember this when we shrink from
their sneers and scoffs. They did what they could to clear the soil,
which is more open now for us to cultivate rightly. Their hatred of
hypocrisy and injustice has made it more easy for us to love honesty
and justice. When the world shall have come to understand these points,
the Lake of Geneva will not be regarded as, in human history, what many
now hold it to be, the antithesis of the Sea of Tiberias.
At 1 P.M. I left Lausanne for London. At 4 I was at Neuchâtel. At 6 I
crossed, at Verrières, from Switzerland into France. At 5 P.M. the next
day I was in London. In these twenty-three hours from the Swiss border
to London were included two and a half hours at Paris for breakfast
and a bath. When we bring together the magnitude of the events that
have recently occurred in the world, the import of the questions now in
debate, the facility with which one may now visit whatever scenes of
interest or instructiveness the world possesses, and remember that we
are now coming to see that all it contains is capable of interesting
and instructing, our conclusion I think must be, that there never were
such times to live in as these of ours. Almost every object, and every
day, has now its interest.
Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor.
I undertake in my title to give a narrative of a Month in Switzerland.
That of course means the narrative of every day in the Month. I have
in the foregoing pages attempted to do this. The Month was the August
of this year, 1873. I have accounted to the reader for every day
separately. He now knows where and how we went, and what we saw each
day. The particulars have all been set down; as far as that goes he
has been one of the party almost as thoroughly as if he had been with
us. All these particulars, however, are to the eye only an alphabet of
detached letters, which are precisely the same for all who go over the
same ground. Some will leave them as detached letters, unvivified with
significance, though full of its elements. Others will spell from them
significant words and sentences: some will find in them this series of
words and sentences, and another that. Each will extract from them a
rendering of his own. None will be able to render them adequately. All
the differences, which will be endless, will be in the rendering; the
letters, that is, the objects, being the same in every case. I have
given one rendering of which they appear to be capable. That also the
reader now has presented to him as completely as he might have had it
had he been with us and cared to have it.
* * * * *
To the traveller, the weather is to a great extent the frame in which
what he does is set. It is sovereign in the disposal of each day.
The reader therefore will be unable to form any useful or complete
conception of such an excursion as that just described unless the
weather also shall have been adequately reported. This too I have
done. He knows now when, during the whole month, the sun shone, and
when the rain fell. He sees what the weather enabled us to do, and what
it hindered us from doing. Here is a summary of it. I have already
mentioned that as I was crossing France, and again at Interlaken, there
were violent thunderstorms. Both these came at midnight, and therefore
by clearing and cooling the air, and by washing away the dust, only
aided a pedestrian. I encountered a third storm at Como, but that too
came when the day’s work was done. At Andermatt I had a wet afternoon,
but as it happened that was no hindrance to my forward movements. The
most of which it deprived me was some little ascent that might have
been made in the immediate neighbourhood. It gave me, however, as much,
only in a different kind, as what it deprived me of. We had a wet day
at Glarus. This was, for forward movements, the complete loss of a
day: but again, a loss not to be regretted. At Brienz, Eggischhorn,
and Bell Alp, we had short afternoon storms, but I should have been
sorry to have missed them. At Lausanne we had a wet forenoon, but that
hindered nothing. All the rest was as bright and fine as could have
been desired. There was much luck in this. August of course is a good
month. In September the weather generally worsens and begins to break
up. It did so this year. From our weather-table two inferences may be
drawn. One is, that it is advisable to get your work over early in the
day. The other is, that in planning your excursion, as in most things,
some margin should be included for possible mishaps and unforeseen
hindrances.
* * * * *
And now a word or two on the plan of the excursion just reported. It
will have been observed that it was so arranged as to provide for the
requirements of two disturbing considerations. First, I had an object:
this kept me on a particular line, and sometimes necessitated a short
day’s march. And then, having been joined in the early part of the
excursion by my wife and her little boy, what was best for them had
thenceforth to be considered, as well as what was best for myself.
This it was that caused my returning through the valleys of Uri and of
Unterwalden, over ground I had already traversed. In this there was
nothing to be regretted, though of course it would not have been done
under other circumstances.
I will now set down the plan upon which I would recommend ordinary
pedestrians to take this district. Begin at Lucerne. Go to the
Schweizer Hof, and see there the assemblage of people of many nations.
Take the boat for Brunnen; for the same reason go to the Hotel of
the Four Forest Cantons. From Brunnen begin your walking along the
Axenstrasse to Flüelen. Then by Altorf, Am Stag, Wasen, and the Devil’s
Bridge to Andermatt. From Andermatt by the St. Gothard, Airolo, Faido,
&c., to Bellinzona. Then Lago Maggiore, Lugano, and Como. Up the
lake of Como to Colico. From Colico by the Splugen, to Flims, on the
Furca-Coire road. From Flims by the Segnes Pass to Glarus.
Alternatives: If you cannot spare the time for the Italian lakes,
go from Andermatt to Flims along the Furca-Coire road. Or if you
wish for a harder pass than the Segnes, go by the Sand Grat Pass
and Stachelberg to Glarus. Or if, whether or no you take the
Italian lakes, you do not wish for either of these Passes, then
go round by Coire to Glarus.
From Glarus by the Klönthal, and the Pragel Pass and Muotta to Schwyz.
Alternatives: By Rapperswyl and Einsiedln to Schwyz. Or having
reached Schwyz by the Pragel, as above, go from Schwyz to
Einsiedln by the Hacken, returning to Schwyz by the lakes of
Egeri and Lowerz.
From Schwyz, taking the boat at Brunnen, cross the lake to Trieb, for
the Sonnenberg Hotel on the Seelisberg. Then down to Beckenried. From
Beckenried across the lake to Gersau. Then by Rigi Scheideck to Rigi
Kulm. From Rigi Kulm to Küsnacht.
Alternative: To Visnau by the Rigi railway.
From Küsnacht, or Visnau, by steamer to Lucerne. Then Pilatus to
Alpnach. Then by Sarnen, Sacheln, Lungern, and the Brünig to Meiringen.
Alternative: From Pilatus to Stanzstad, Stanz, Engelberg, the
Surenen Pass, to Klus. From Klus to Wasen. From Wasen by the
Susten Pass to Im Hof.
From Meiringen, or Im Hof, by the Grimsel to the Rhone Glacier. From
the Rhone Glacier by the Upper Valais to Viesch. From Viesch to
Eggischhorn.
Alternative: From the Rhone Glacier Hotel, or the Grimsel
Hospice, to the Eggischhorn by the Oberaarjoch.
From Eggischhorn to Rieder Alp. From Rieder Alp to Bell Alp. From Bell
Alp to Brieg.
If you want more details than our map supplies, procure the sections
for the district of General Dufour’s map. It is a map which is almost
a picture. It gives the contour of every mountain and valley, and
indicates every _châlet_.
Everything with which we have to do has, or ought to have, its science.
So therefore it is, or ought to be, with enjoyment. Anticipation in
this science counts for something. The brute only it is who goes
straight to the main point first, and at once. Man, endowed with
reason, and because he is, looks forward to what will give pleasure. He
sees it at the end of a long vista. He dallies with the anticipation,
he works up to the supreme fruition. To him there are preparatory
stages. And these stages, because they are preparatory, are delightful.
This is a privilege of mind. Herein is the philosophy of wooing first
and of marrying afterwards. If the course of the wooing have been
somewhat prolonged and not quite smooth, so much the better for the
marriage. The Turk, who marries without the wooing, is unscientific.
In our science arrangement is well-nigh sovereign. It would not do
to begin your dinner with iced pudding and maraschino, taking next
venison and champagne, then descending through _entrées_ to fish, and
concluding with the anticlimax of a plate of _Julienne_. This were what
a pig or a Fiji might do. Reason, and a palate, and a human stomach
were given us for a better purpose. And as it is with the details of
the dinner, so is it with the dinner as a whole. It is too great an
event to be placed early in the day. It would not do to have it served
at 10 A.M., and then what you would have had for your breakfast served
at 8 P.M. On this inverted plan what would in the twenty-four hours be
given to the palate and to the stomach would be precisely the same,
but as Wordsworth says of another matter, ‘Oh, the difference!’ The
dinner must be looked forward to, for everything after it comes flat.
It must be worked up to: in a sense, earned. The labours of the day are
lightened, because there is something worthy of them coming at the end
of it.
Our science, too, is not one of the rigidly pure order. It is an
applied science, and makes the most of its materials and opportunities.
For instance, in this same matter of dinner it sees far more than is
taken into account in the philosophy of the strong-minded, who say
that to assuage hunger is its single object. Certes, it would be so
if again we were all of us pigs or Fijis. But we have been evolved
into something higher, and so have been enabled to turn dinner to some
other accounts. To us the naked, primal purpose is hardly primal, and
no longer naked. We have so wreathed it with flowers, so surrounded it
with and made it so to minister to other purposes, that the original
purpose has long ceased to be all in all, and what is incidental--even
so far from the original animal purpose as good fellowship, society,
and conversation--has ostensibly become now the main object. These
incidental and secondary objects had no place in the original idea. So
far, the strong-minded are right. But now, to their discomfiture, the
secondary objects, which are altogether humanizing, and at all events
semi-intellectual, have much mitigated the old animalism of the matter,
and have become almost the main idea; of course, to those in whom what
is humanizing and intellectual has assumed some form and consistency.
And so, to come at last to the matter we have been dealing with in
the foregoing pages, is it with a Swiss excursion and its objects and
incidents. Arrangement should be studied, and the objects should be
taken in an ascending, not in a descending scale. What in its proper
place and in a right order is good, sapid, enjoyable, would become in
a wrong place, and in an inverted order, bad, insipid, unenjoyable.
You must, too, study variety, and light and shade. If you arrange to
have things good only in one and the same kind, and all of the highest
intensity, everything being grand and striking in the same way, you
will soon get tired of what you are about; and deservedly so. Keep the
best thing for the end, or for a place towards the end. Look forward to
what is best, work up to it, and approach it by an ascending scale. Do
not take the Eggischhorn first, and then go to the Lake of Lucerne and
the Forest Cantons. So much for anticipation and arrangement.
Understand too that the sources of interest incidentally within your
reach are of many kinds. But in these you will find little to interest
you if you have not made some progress in those humanities of culture
we just now referred to, and this goes some way to prove that if it
be not a duty we owe to ourselves, yet at all events it would be wise
to make some such acquisitions. Without them some of the highest,
and purest, and most accessible enjoyments of life are unattainable.
The people then you will be among are interesting, and the different
classes in different ways. Every man, woman, and child almost is in
some way or other an interesting study. And nature interests in a
thousand forms, and in a thousand moods. If bigness only interests
you, if nothing less than a mountain moves you, Heaven help you! for
then, somehow or other, you have been deprived of infinite sources of
enjoyment which have been provided for, or are at all events within
the reach of instructed and cultivated perception. Some or other of
these are always before you, and should have been to you unpalling
and inexhaustible. If it be not so with you, then are you mentally in
the state in which Milton was physically, when ‘the serene drop had
quenched his visual ray.’ Your bodily eye sees, but in your inward eye
there is no speculation. You are now, instead of ‘the book of knowledge
fair,’
Presented with an universal blank
Of nature’s works, for you expunged and razed;
And wisdom, at one entrance, quite shut out:
and too, together with wisdom, a great part of the enjoyment of life.
Endeavour then to note nature’s forms, so endlessly varied, and every
variation good! Note, too, her garb: again how varied, and again every
variation good! Endeavour to note the reciprocal relations of organic
and inorganic nature, of life to dead matter. And above all, note the
relation of all you see to sovereign man. Think of how what you are
beholding informed man’s mind and shaped his life in times past, and
how it is informing his mind and shaping his life now. Solicit thought
to interpret to you what your eye reports. This world belongs to those
who understand it. Despise not knowledge. Awaken imagination. Deem none
made of meaner clay than yourself.