To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.
Silleri, Feb. 25, Afternoon.
So, my dear, as I was saying, this same ride to Montmorenci--where
was I, Lucy? I forget.--O, I believe pretty near the mouth of the
bay, embosomed in which lies the lovely cascade of which I am to give
you a winter description, and which I only slightly mentioned when I
gave you an account of the rivers by which it is supplied.
The road, about a mile before you reach this bay, is a regular
glassy level, without any of those intervening hills of ice which I
have mentioned; hills, which with the ideas, though false ones, of
danger and difficulty, give those of beauty and magnificence too.
As you gradually approach the bay, you are struck with an awe, which
increases every moment, as you come nearer, from the grandeur of a
scene, which is one of the noblest works of nature: the beauty, the
proportion, the solemnity, the wild magnificence of which, surpassing
every possible effect of art, impress one strongly with the idea of its
Divine Almighty Architect.
The rock on the east side, which is first in view as you approach,
is a smooth and almost perpendicular precipice, of the same height as
the fall; the top, which a little over-hangs, is beautifully covered
with pines, firs, and ever-greens of various kinds, whose verdant
lustre is rendered at this season more shining and lovely by the
surrounding snow, as well as by that which is sprinkled irregularly on
their branches, and glitters half melted in the sun-beams: a thousand
smaller shrubs are scattered on the side of the ascent, and, having
their roots in almost imperceptible clefts of the rock, seem to those
below to grow in air.
The west side is equally lofty, but more sloping, which, from that
circumstance, affords soil all the way, upon shelving inequalities of
the rock, at little distances, for the growth of trees and shrubs, by
which it is almost entirely hid.
The most pleasing view of this miracle of nature is certainly in
summer, and in the early part of it, when every tree is in foliage and
full verdure, every shrub in flower; and when the river, swelled with a
waste of waters from the mountains from which it derives its source,
pours down in a tumultuous torrent, that equally charms and astonishes
the beholder.
The winter scene has, notwithstanding, its beauties, though of a
different kind, more resembling the stillness and inactivity of the
season.
The river being on its sides bound up in frost, and its channel
rendered narrower than in the summer, affords a less body of water to
supply the cascade; and the fall, though very steep, yet not being
exactly perpendicular, masses of ice are formed, on different shelving
projections of the rock, in a great variety of forms and proportions.
The torrent, which before rushed with such impetuosity down the deep
descent in one vast sheet of water, now descends in some parts with a
slow and majestic pace; in others seems almost suspended in mid air;
and in others, bursting through the obstacles which interrupt its
course, pours down with redoubled fury into the foaming bason below,
from whence a spray arises, which, freezing in its ascent, becomes on
each side a wide and irregular frozen breast-work; and in front, the
spray being there much greater, a lofty and magnificent pyramid of
solid ice.
I have not told you half the grandeur, half the beauty, half the
lovely wildness of this scene: if you would know what it is, you must
take no information but that of your own eyes, which I pronounce
strangers to the loveliest work of creation till they have seen the
river and fall of Montmorenci.
In short, my dear, I am Montmorenci-mad.
I can hardly descend to tell you, we passed the ice from thence to
Orleans, and dined out of doors on six feet of snow, in the charming
enlivening warmth of the sun, though in the month of February, at a
time when you in England scarce feel his beams.
Fitzgerald made violent love to me all the way, and I never felt
myself listen with such complacency.
Adieu! I have wrote two immense letters. Write oftener; you are
lazy, yet expect me to be an absolute slave in the scribbling way.
Your faithful
A. Fermor.
Do you know your brother has admirable ideas? He contrived to lose
his way on our return, and kept Emily ten minutes behind the rest of
the company. I am apt to fancy there was something like a declaration,
for she blushed,
"Celestial rosy red,"
when he led her into the dining room at Silleri.
Once more, adieu!