The Spell of Switzerland Part 14

"I conduct you to the loftiest mountains of the old world, to the most ancient laboratory of Nature, where she operated with boundless energy before man existed, and where she produces objects of inexpressible sublimity and beauty, now that there are mortals to admire them. I conduct you to the secret sources of the rivers that irrigate and fertilize half Europe. I conduct you on one and the same day from the scorching heat of Spain to the cold of Lapland or Spitzbergen; from the vine and the chestnut-tree to the Alpine rose, and from the Alpine rose to the last insignificant moss that grows on the extreme verge of animated Nature.

"You shall find fragrance in flowers, which in the valleys yield no scent; you shall pluck strawberries on the margin of everlasting ice.

"I conduct you to the fountain of the dews and rains that dispense blessings over half our quarter of the globe; to the birthplace of refreshing breezes and of storms which temper and purify the atmosphere.

"I conduct you to the clearest and freshest springs, the most magnificent water-falls, the most extensive glaciers, the most stupendous snow-clad mountains and the most fertile pastures. The tremendous avalanche shall pursue before you its thundering career.

"The brilliant crystal, the swift chamois, the harmless marmot, the soaring eagle, the rapacious vulture, as unusual objects, will strike your eye and excite pleasure and admiration.

"From the toiling husbandman you will ascend to the happy cowherd.

Innumerable flocks of cattle, of extraordinary beauty and spirit, will bound about you. In the foaming milk and the clotted cream you will taste of the riches of the country which are poured forth into the most distant regions.

"But, above all, you will be delighted with the inhabitants, men of rare symmetry of form, active and robust, cheerful and independent,--women, decked with unsophisticated charms and graces and manifesting the childlike curiosity and the engaging confidence of the ancient ages of innocence.

"Old traditions and rural songs will meet your ear, and the picture presented in the idyls of Theocritus will be realized, but on a grander scale and with more diversified accompaniments.

"Lastly, in those elevated regions you will yourself become better; you will verify the promise of the moral philosopher; you will feel greater facility of respiration, more suppleness and vigor of body, and greater buoyancy of spirits. All the pa.s.sions are here softened down and pleasure is less intense. The mind is led into a grand and sublime train of thought, suited to the objects which surround us; it is filled with a certain calm delight unalloyed with anything that is painful or sensual. It seems as if in rising above the habitations of men we left behind us all base and earthly feelings; and as if the soul in approaching nearer to the ethereal heaven acquired somewhat of its unruffled serenity."

And quite a propos, it seems to me, here is Rousseau's famous description of the sunrise:

"Let us betake ourselves to some lofty place before the Sun appears.

We see him announced from afar by the fiery darts which he sends before him. The fire increases; the east seems all in flames. By their dazzling splendor one looks for the orb long before it shows itself. Each instant one thinks to see it appear. There it is at last!

A brilliant point shoots off like a flash and instantly fills all s.p.a.ce....

"The veil of darkness is rent and falls; man recognizes his dwelling-place and finds it ever-more more beautiful. During the night the verdure has taken on new vigor; the dawning day which lights it, the first rays which gild it, bring it before us with a glittering panoply of dew, flashing brilliant colors into our eyes. The birds join in chorus and salute the father of life. The concourse of all these objects brings to the senses an impression of freshness which seems to penetrate into the depths of the soul. Here is a half-hour of enchantment which no man can resist. A spectacle so grand, so beautiful, so delicious, leaves no one unmoved."

Rousseau attributed his love of Nature to the two peaceful years which he spent at the parsonage at Borsey, developing as they did his taste and enabling him later to bring about a complete revolution in the esthetic and literary tendencies of the century. If Rousseau got up to see a sunrise, why, then it became the fashion to get up and see sunrises; if Rousseau went to a high mountain-top, then it became fashionable to go to high mountain-tops. Here is his recipe for mountain-climbing, written after he had made an excursion on foot to Valais in the Autumn of 1759:--

"I gradually realized that the purity of the air was the real cause of the return of that interior peace which I had lost so long. In fact on high mountains, where the air is pure and subtle, we feel a greater facility in breathing, greater physical lightness, greater mental serenity. Our meditations take on a peculiar character of grandeur and sublimity, proportioned to the objects surrounding us. It seems as if in rising above the dwellings of men, we left behind all low and terrestrial thoughts and, in proportion as we approach the upper regions, the soul attains something of their changeless purity. Here we are grave, but not melancholy; peaceful, but not indolent; simply content to be and to think. I doubt if any violent agitation, if any _maladie des vapeurs_ could resist such a sojourn if prolonged, and I am amazed that baths in the wholesome and beneficent mountain-air are not one of the sovereign remedies of medicine and morals."

The same idea is found in quaint lines in a Mountain Poem by Usteri:

"Uf Bergen, uf Bergen Da isch's eim so wohl De Berg is de Doktor Fur Seel und fur Lyb!"

Alexander Pope and other old English writers are always talking about fits of "vapours." I wonder how the name arose, and why it went out of style. Vapour comes from water, tears are water; hence vapours,--perhaps that is the logic of the term. Of course then they would evaporate in the dry mountain-air.

I recollected how Rousseau loved this very lake. I remembered his apostrophe to it after he had been out sailing on it:--

"As we skirted the sh.o.r.es, I admired the rich and charming landscapes of the Pays de Vaud, where the hosts of villages, the green and well-kept terraces on all sides form a ravishing picture; where the land, everywhere cultivated and everywhere fertile, offers the plowman, the herdman, the vintner the a.s.sured fruit of their labors, not devoured as elsewhere by the grasping tax-collector.... The lake was calm. I kept perfect silence. The even and measured noise of the oars set me to dreaming. A cloudless sky, the coolness of the air, the sweet rays of the moon, the silvery shimmer of the water shining around us, filled me with the most delicious sensations. Oh, my lake! thou hast a charm which I cannot explain, which does not arise wholly from the beauty of the scene, but from something more interesting, which affects me and touches me. When the eager desire of this sweet and happy life for which I was born comes to kindle my imagination, it always attaches itself to the lake."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ACROSS LAKE LEMAN.]

And then again his poignant cry of farewell:

"Oh, my lake, on the sh.o.r.es of which I spent the peaceful years of mine infancy, charming landscapes where for the first time I witnessed the majestic and touching sunrise, where I felt the first emotions of my heart, the first impulse of genius, alas! become too imperious....

Oh, my lake, I shall never see thee more."

CHAPTER XIV

THE CITY OF ROUSSEAU AND CALVIN

Apparently Geneva is prouder of being the Mother of Rousseau than of having adopted Calvin. Both were exiled--Calvin by his enemies; Rousseau by his worst enemy, himself. Calvin, having settled the basis of his theology, built himself on it, never shaken; Rousseau canted and recanted and rerecanted. He was a Protestant; he was a Catholic; he was a free-thinker; he was a deist.

Once, at Madame d'Epinay's, Saint Lambert avowed himself an atheist.

Rousseau exclaimed:--"If it is cowardice to allow anyone to say ill about an absent friend, then it is a crime to allow anyone to say evil of his G.o.d who is present, and, gentlemen, I believe in G.o.d."

Saint Lambert indulged in still another sneering remark and Rousseau threatened to leave if anything more of the kind were said.

Curiously enough, Rousseau, who was a stickler for free speech, sided against Voltaire in his battle against Calvinism. He saw that the great scoffer wanted to upset the habits and customs of Calvin's city, to introduce a love of pleasure and of luxury and especially of the theatre. He wrote:--

"So Voltaire's weapons are satire, black falsehood, and libels. Thus he repays the hospitality which Geneva by a fatal indulgence has shown him. This fanfaron of impiety, this lofty genius and this low soul, this man so great through his talents, so base (_vil_) in his use of them, will leave long and cruel memories among us. Ridicule, that poison of good sense and of uprightness, satire, enemy of the public peace, flabbiness, arrogant pomp will henceforth make a people of trivialities, of buffoons, of wits, of commerce, who in place of the consideration once enjoyed by our literary men will put Geneva on the level of the Academies of Ma.r.s.eilles and of Angers."

This letter was widely circulated. Voltaire, who might have been more offended by its lack of style than by its attack on him, henceforth used every opportunity to injure and insult Rousseau.

When "Emile" appeared it shocked the theologians. The City ordered it to be burned by the official hangman. The Church said to him:--"You extol the excellence of the Gospel yet you destroy its dogmas. You paint the beauty of the virtues yet you snuff them out in the souls of your readers." He was even condemned by Parliament to be imprisoned.

The pious Jacob Vernet, Pastor Mouton and Pastor Vernes wrote him letters expressing their admiration of his talents but criticizing some of his views. After he published his "Lettres de la Montagne,"

which caused a terrible hubbub, Vernes, Chapuis and Claparede publicly attacked him.

Voltaire wrote:--"Grand and edifying spectacle presented by the venerable Company of Pastors at Geneva! While the Government is burning Rousseau's books, the clergy approves of them and finds itself very happy to be reduced to a natural religion which proves nothing and asks little."

And those that stoned the prophets raise monuments to them. Calvin, whom Rousseau called "_esprit dur et farouche_," has no monument, unless a street named after him may be considered as one; but Rousseau has a whole island with a big bronze statue on it and a street besides.

This is the substance of our breakfast-table conversation. When we had finished our coffee and rolls we started out for a long walk. Ruth, like a woman, wanted to look at the shops; Will and I would go hunting for Rousseau and Calvin.

For a long time a house in Geneva bore the inscription:--

ICI EST NE JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU LE 28 JUIN 1712.

But that was a mistake. It is now known that he was born in his father's house, Number 2, Grand' Rue, and there he lived till 1719.

Then he went to live at 73, Rue de Constance. His father, Isaac Rousseau, though of a family which had emigrated from Paris, where they had been booksellers, and had for two hundred years enjoyed a highly respectable position in the bourgeoisie of Geneva, was regarded as rather frivolous. Probably that was because he varied his trade of watch-making by giving dancing-lessons. Dancing in the city of Calvin, in spite of the ill.u.s.trious example of King David before the Ark of the Tabernacle, was regarded with little favour. He engaged in a quarrel with the retired Captain Goutier and they fought a duel contrary to the law. Goutier was wounded. On investigation Isaac was found guilty and condemned to beg pardon on his two knees. He chose to expatriate himself, and Jean Jacques went to live with his Uncle Bernard at 19, Grand' Rue, and at Bossey with Pastor Lambercie. His education was not wholly neglected. He himself says:--

"At the age of seven I used to read books of history with my father.

Plutarch became my favourite study. Agesilaus, Brutus, Aristotle were my heroes; from the discussions which these readings caused between my father and me, grew that free and republican spirit, that proud indomitable character, impatient of any yoke or servitude, which has so tormented me all the days of my life. Born a citizen of a republic, son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest pa.s.sion, I took fire by his example; constantly occupied with Athens and Rome, I became the very person whose life I was reading; the story of the acts of constancy and bravery which struck me, made my eyes sparkle, my voice grow strong."

Whatever his training really was, for he is not always a reliable chronicler of his own actions, he contrasts what he considered the ideal up-bringing of children as conducted in Switzerland with that of the French children. His words were destined to bear fruit:--

"Is it not supremely ridiculous to educate boys like young girls? Ah, it is truly fine to see these little twelve-year-old fops, walking out, their hands plump, their voices delicate (_flutees_), with pretty green parasols to protect them from the sun. They were less finical in my country: children, brought up in rustic fashion, had no complexions to preserve; they feared no harm from the air. Their fathers took them out hunting and gave them all kinds of exercise. They were reserved and modest in the presence of their elders; they were bold, proud, even quarrelsome, among themselves; they were rivals in wrestling, running, boxing; they were skilled in fencing. They came home rugged; they were genuine little rascals; but they grew into men whose hearts were full of zeal in their country's service and ready to give their lives for her."

In April, 1725, he was apprenticed to an engraver, named Abel Ducommun, Rue des Etuves, Number 96, third floor. He liked the trade, for, as he says, he had a lively taste for drawing; but his master was brutal, and at last, on a Sunday evening in March, 1728, having been locked out of the city through returning too late from a long walk beyond the walls and having spent the night wretchedly on the glacis "in a transport of despair" he suddenly swore never to return to his master's. Rogers, in one of his poems, thus refers to this inhospitality on the part of Geneva, which, of course, was possible only in a small city surrounded with walls:--

"On my way I went.

Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily, Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut; As on that Sabbath-eve when He arrived, Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee Such virtue dwells in those small syllables, Inscribed to consecrate the narrow street.

His birth-place,--when but one short step too late, In his despair, as though the die were cast, He flung him down to weep and wept till dawn; Then rose to go, a wanderer through the world."