Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands Volume Ii Part 15

At about eleven we set off with two horses in an open carriage, by the left sh.o.r.e, to visit St. Cergue, and ascend the Jura. All our way was gradually ascending, and before us, or rather across the lake on one side, stood the glorious New Jerusalem scene. We were highly favored.

Every moment diminished the intervening mountains, and lifted the gorgeous pageant higher into the azure.

Every step, every turn, presented it in some new point of view, and extended the range of observation. New Alps were continually rising, and diamond-pointed peaks glancing up behind sombre granite bulwarks.

At noon _cocher_ stopped at a village to refresh his horses. We proceeded to a cool terrace filled with trees, and lulled by the splash of a fountain, from whence the mountain was in full view. Here we investigated the mysteries of a certain basket which our provident hostess had brought with her.

After due refreshment and repose we continued our route, ascending the Jura, towards the Dole, which is the highest mountain of that range. A macadamized road coiled up the mountain side, affording us at every turning a new and more splendid view of the other sh.o.r.e of the lake.

At length we reached St. Cergue, and leaving the carriage, H. and I, guided by a peasant girl, went through the woods to the highest point, where were the ruins of the ancient chateau. Far be it from me to describe what we saw. I feel that I have already been too presumptuous. We sat down, and each made a hasty sketch of Mont Blanc.

We took tea at the hotel, which reminded us, by the neatness of its scoured chambers with their white bedspreads, of the apartments of some out-of-the-way New England farm house.

The people of the neighborhood having discovered who H. was, were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland over again.

We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed, both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of regard. To this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was touching to listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The good hostess, even the servant maids, hung about H., expressing such tender interest for the slave. All had read Uncle Tom. And it had apparently been an era in their life's monotony, for they said, "O, madam, do write another!

Remember, our winter nights here are _very_ long!"

The proprietor of the inn (not the landlord) was a gentleman of education and polished demeanor. _He had lost an Eva_, he said.

And he spoke with deep emotion. He thanked H. for what she had written, and at parting said, "Have courage; the sacred cause of Liberty will yet prevail through the world."

Ah, they breathe a pure air, these generous Swiss, among these mountain tops! May their simple words be a prophecy divine.

At about six we returned, and as we slowly wound down the mountain side we had a full view of all the phenomena of color attending the sun's departure. The mountain,--the city rather,--for so high had it risen, that I could imagine a New Jerusalem of pearly white, with Mont Blanc for the central citadel, or temple,--the city was all a-glow.

The air behind, the sky, became of a delicate apple green; the snow, before so incandescent in whiteness, a.s.sumed a rosy tint. We paused-- we sat in silence to witness these miraculous transformations.

"Charley," said H., "sing that hymn of yours, the New Jerusalem." And in the hush of the mountain solitudes we sang together,--

"We are on our journey home, Where Christ our Lord is gone; We will meet around his throne, When he makes his people one In the New Jerusalem.

We can see that distant home, Though clouds rise oft between; Faith views the radiant dome, And a l.u.s.tre flashes keen From the New Jerusalem.

O, glory shining far From the never-setting sun!

O, trembling morning star!

Our journey's almost done To the New Jerusalem.

Our hearts are breaking now Those mansions fair to see: O Lord, thy heavens bow, And raise us up with thee To the New Jerusalem."

The echoes of our voices died along the mountain sides, as slowly we wended our downward way. The rosy flush began to fade. A rich creamy or orange hue seemed to imbue the scene, and finally, as the shadows from the Jura crept higher, and covered it with a pall, it a.s.sumed a startling, deathlike pallor of chalky white. Mont Blanc was dead. Mont Blanc was walking as a ghost upon the granite ranges. But as darkness came on, and as the sky over the Jura, where the sun had set, obtained a deep, rosy tinge, Mont Blanc revived a little, and a flush of delicate, transparent pink tinged his cone, and Mont Blanc was asleep.

Good night to Mont Blanc.

Wednesday morning, June 29. The day is intensely hot; the weather is exceedingly fair, but Mont Blanc is not visible. Not a vestige--not a trace. All vanished. It does not seem possible. There do not seem to exist the conditions for such celestial pageant to have stood there.

What! there--where my eyes now look steadily and piercingly into the blue, into the seemingly fathomless azure--there, will they tell me, I saw that enraptured vision, as it were, the city descending from G.o.d out of heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband? Incredible! It must be a dream, a vision of the night.

Evening. After the heat of the day our whole household, old and young, set forth for a boating excursion on the lake. Dividing our party in two boats, we pulled about a mile up the left sh.o.r.e. Lake Leman was before us in all its loveliness; and we were dipping our oar where Byron had floated past scenes which scarce need to become cla.s.sic to possess a superior charm. The sun was just gone behind the Jura, leaving a glorious sky. Mont Blanc stood afar behind a hazy veil, like a spirit half revealed. We saw it pa.s.s before our eyes as we moved.

"It stood still, but we could not discern the form thereof." As we glided on past boats uncounted, winged or many-footed, motionless or still, we softly sung,--

"Think of me oft at twilight hour, And I will think of thee; Remembering how we felt its power When thou wast still with me.

Dear is that hour, for day then sleeps Upon the gray cloud's breast; And not a voice or sound e'er keeps His wearied eyes from rest."

The surface of the lake was unruffled. The air was still. An occasional burst from the band in the garden of Rousseau came softened in the distance. Enveloped in her thick shawl H. reclined in the stern, and gave herself to the influences of the hour.

Darkness came down upon the deep. And in the gloom we turned our prows towards the many-twinkling quays, far in the distance. We bent to the oar in emulous contest, and our barks foamed and hissed through the water. In a few moments we were pa.s.sing through the noisy crowd on the quay towards our quiet home.

LETTER x.x.xII.

DEAR CHILDREN:--

I promised to write from Chamouni, so to commence at the commencement.

Fancy me, on a broiling day in July, panting with the heat, gazing from my window in Geneva upon Lake Leman, which reflects the sun like a burning gla.s.s, and thinking whether in America, or any where else, it was ever so hot before. This was quite a new view of the subject to me, who had been warned in Paris only of the necessity of blanket shawls, and had come to Switzerland with my head full of glaciers, and my trunk full of furs.

While arranging my travelling preparations, Madame F. enters.

"Have you considered how cold it is up there?" she inquires.

"I am glad if it is cold any where," said I.

"Ah, you will find it dreadful; you will need to be thoroughly guarded."

I suggested tippets, flannels, and furs, of which I already possessed a moderate supply. But no; these were altogether insufficient. It was necessary that I should buy two immense fur coats; one for C., and one for myself.

I a.s.sure you that such preparations, made with the thermometer between eighty and ninety, impress one with a kind of awe. "What regions must they be," thought I to myself, "thus sealed up in eternal snows, while the country at their feet lies scorching in the very fire!" A shadow of incredulity mingled itself with my reflections. On the whole, I bought but _one_ fur coat.

At this moment C. came up to tell me that W., S., and G. had all come back from Italy, so that our party was once more together.

It was on the 5th of July that S. and I took our seats in the _coupe_ of the diligence. Now, this _coupe_ is low and narrow enough, so that our condition reminded me slightly of the luckless fowls which I have sometimes seen riding to the Cincinnati market in _coupes_ of about equal convenience. Nevertheless, it might be considered a peaceable and satisfactory style of accommodation in an ordinary country. But to ride among the wonders of the Alps in such a vehicle is something like contemplating infinity through the nose of a bottle. It was really very tantalizing and provoking to me till C. was so obliging as to resign his seat on top in my favor, and descend into _Sheol_, as he said. Then I began to live; for I could see to the summit of the immense walls of rock under which we were pa.s.sing. By and by we were reminded, by the examination of our pa.s.sports, that we had entered Sardinia; and the officers, being duly satisfied that we were not going to Chamouni to levy an army among the glaciers, or raise a sedition among the avalanches, let us pa.s.s free. The discretion and wisdom of this pa.s.sport system can never be sufficiently admired. It must be entirely owing to this, that the Alps do not break out on Europe generally, and tear it in pieces.

But the mountains--how shall I give you the least idea of them? Old, sombre, haggard genii, half veiled in clouds, belted with pines, worn and furrowed with storms and avalanches, but not as yet crowned with snow. For many miles after leaving Geneva, the Mole is the princ.i.p.al object; its blue-black outline veering and shifting, taking on a thousand strange varieties of form as you approach it, others again as you recede.

It is a cloudy day; and heavy volumes of vapor are wreathing and unwreathing themselves around the gaunt forms of the everlasting rocks, like human reasonings, desires, and hopes around the ghastly realities of life and death; graceful, undulating, and sometimes gleaming out in silver or rosy wreaths. Still, they are nothing but mist; the dread realities are just where they were before. It is odd, though, to look at these cloud caperings; quite as interesting, in its way, as to read new systems of transcendental philosophy, and perhaps quite as profitable. Yonder is a great, whiteheaded cloud, slowly unrolling himself in the bosom of a black pine forest. Across the other side of the road a huge granite cliff has picked up a bit of gauzy silver, which he is winding round his scraggy neck. And now, here comes a cascade right over our heads; a cascade, not of water, but of cloud; for the poor little brook that makes it faints away before it gets down to us; it falls like a shimmer of moonlight, or a shower of powdered silver, while a tremulous rainbow appears at uncertain intervals, like a half-seen spirit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _of waterfalls._]

The cascade here, as in mountains generally, is a never-failing source of life and variety. Water, joyous, buoyant son of Nature, is calling to you, leaping, sparkling, mocking at you between bushes, and singing as he goes down the dells. A thousand little pictures he makes among the rocks as he goes; like the little sketch which I send you.

Then, the _bizarre_ outline of the rocks; well does Goethe call them "the giant-snouted crags;" and as the diligence winds slowly on, they seem to lean, and turn, and bend. Now they close up like a wall in front, now open in piny and cloudy vistas: now they embrace the torrent in their great, black arms; and now, flashing laughter and babbling defiance through rifted rocks and uprooted pines, the torrent shoots past them, down into some fathomless abyss. These old Alp mothers cannot hold their offspring back from abysses any better than poor earth mothers.

There are phases in nature which correspond to every phase of human thought and emotion; and this stern, cloudy scenery answers to the melancholy fatalism of Greek tragedy, or the kindred mournfulness of the Book of Job.

These dark channelled rocks, worn, as with eternal tears,--these traces, so evident of ancient and vast desolations,--suggest the idea of boundless power and inexorable will, before whose course the most vehement of human feelings are as the fine spray of the cataract.

"For, surely, the mountain, falling, cometh to nought; The rock is remored out of his place; The waters wear the stones; Thou washest away the things that grow out of the earth, And thou destroyest the hopes of man; Thou prevailest against him, and he pa.s.seth; Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away."

The sceptical inquirer into the mysteries of eternal things might here, if ever, feel the solemn irony of Eliphaz the Temanite:--

"Should a wise man utter vain knowledge?

Should he reason with unprofitable talk?

Or with speeches that can do no good?