The Spell of Switzerland Part 19

In Eynard's "Life of Tissot" there is an amusing account of Gibbon's dancing the minuet:--

"A German highly educated, but naturally ardent and enthusiastic, presented himself, furnished with excellent letters of recommendation, to one of our professors at Lausanne, and expressed to him his desire to make the acquaintance of the immortal author of the 'Avis au Peuple.' The professor was going that evening to visit Madame de Chavriere, who received the most agreeable people of Lausanne. He proposed to the gentleman to introduce him there; it was in the country.

"At the moment when they arrived at Madame de Chavriere's the company had just been playing games and were paying the forfeits. One of the company was playing on a violin, while a gentleman of remarkable corpulence appeared to be searching the room for something he could not find. At length the violin gave forth louder sounds, and the stout gentleman--it was no less a personage than the ill.u.s.trious Gibbon--came and took the hand of M. Tissot, whose figure, tall, dignified, and cold, formed the most complete contrast with his own.

But this was not enough; the violin continued to play, and they were both obliged to dance several figures of a minuet, to the great delight of the whole a.s.semblage. It was the payment of a forfeit due from Gibbon, whose jovial temperament readily lent itself to this form of pleasantry.

"But the German whose sensibility and emotion at this spectacle had been plainly visible did not realize what it meant. The following year there was great astonishment at Lausanne to learn that he had taken it all seriously and that in the account of his travels which he had just printed, he cited as one of the most remarkable of his experiences the advantage of having seen the celebrated historian of Rome and the ill.u.s.trious philanthropist, the benefactor of humanity, intertwining dances and harmonious steps, thus recalling the beautiful days of Arcadia, all whose antique virtues and simplicity they possessed."

It is evident that Tissot was not only the physician to all these great people; they were proud to own him as a friend. And since most of his friends and patients were rich his rivals charged him with being a charlatan and occupied only in making money. He did make money, and some of his t.i.tled patients sent him splendid presents.

Among the most interesting of M. Tissot's fair consultants was the lively and piquante Madame de Genlis who arrived at Lausanne with her father-in-law. She spent nearly a fortnight under his care, but the fetes, the b.a.l.l.s, the concerts at which she displayed her charming voice, and played the harp, the sails on the lake, the trips across to La Meillerie, and a mult.i.tude of other dissipations might well have undone all the doctor's prescriptions. But they were for her mother not for her. Madame de Genlis had long sworn by his medical book. She tells in her memoirs how she practised, in an amateur way, on or among the villagers. M. Racine, the barber, always came to consult with her whenever any one was ill.

"We went together to visit them," she says. "My prescriptions were confined to simple teas and broths which I usually sent from the chateau. I was at least instrumental in moderating the zeal of M.

Racine for the emetics which he prescribed for almost every ill. I had perfected myself in the art of bleeding; the peasants often came and asked me to bleed them which I did; but as it was known that I always gave them from twenty-four to thirty sous after a bleeding, I soon had a great number of patients and I suspected that they were attracted by the thirty sous."

She gives an entertaining account of her arrival at Lausanne, where, as she was sitting in her carriage, wearily waiting for her servant to find lodgings, the young Prince of Holstein recognized her and introduced her to Madame de Crousaz, the auth.o.r.ess, who procured for her at the house of her father-in-law, M. de Crousaz, "charming rooms with an enchanting view of the Lake of Geneva."

CHAPTER XVIII

TO CHAMONIX

While I was reading about Madame de Genlis after breakfast one morning, Ruth came into the library and we talked about the advantage of foreign travel. Does the broadening effect come from seeing new scenes or does it proceed from the intercourse which it favours with men and women of entirely different habits and modes of thought?

I said that my belief was that a person living in an isolated country town, by reading books of travel, especially those furnished with ill.u.s.trations, and by attending "moving-picture shows," might attain to as complete a knowledge of any given foreign country as he would by merely travelling through it armed with a Baedecker. The generality of travellers carry with them the individual aura of their own conceit which is quite impermeable to new ideas, and what they have seen does not soak into their inner consciousness at all. But for the average person, if there be such a person, stay-at-home travel is more advantageous than actual peregrinations. Rus.h.i.+ng from one country to another or from one place to another is not seeing a country.

Ruth called my attention to what Lord Bacon said about travel. In his day "the grand tour" was the culmination of a young n.o.bleman's education, and Italy was the goal. Switzerland was merely an obstacle on the way, to be crossed with more or less discomfort and with little thought of its picturesqueness. Ruth took down a handsome edition of the "Essays" and turned to the one which treats of this subject and read it aloud to me.

It was not in accordance with his scheme to fill the mind with pictures of beautiful scenery, though he realized that for young men it is a part of education and for their elders a part of experience.

He says:--"He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school and not to travel." He would not object for young men to travel provided they take a tutor who knows languages and "may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go, what acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth; for else young men shall go hooded and look abroad little."

He believed in keeping diaries. He tells us that the things to be seen and observed are:--"the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to amba.s.sadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures where any are; s.h.i.+pping and navies; houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near great cities; armories, a.r.s.enals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemans.h.i.+p, fencing, training of soldiers and the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets and rarities; and to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go, after all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of them; yet they are not to be neglected."

He did not believe in staying long in any one city or town; but "more or less as the place deserveth, but not long," nor staying in any one part of a town: "Let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance." And he advised "sequestering himself from the company of his countrymen and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth." Acquaintance was the thing to cultivate, especially secretaries and attaches or, as Bacon called them, "employed men of amba.s.sadors," and the reason for this was that he might "suck the experience of many."

"When a traveller returneth home," he says in conclusion, "let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letter with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth; and let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture, and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories, and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts but only p.r.i.c.k in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country."

I remarked that Ralph Waldo Emerson found to his disappointment on his first trip abroad that he could not rid himself of himself. It was the same Emerson in Rome, in Paris and in London, as in Boston. How much would travel do for such a man? The great philosopher, Immanuel Kant, never ventured more than sixty miles from Konigsberg and he was lost if varied from the daily routine of shuttle-like attendance on his lectures--back and forth, back and forth.

"Yet," said I, "Kant wrote remarkably accurate descriptions of Switzerland in his Physical Geography. He could never have seen the Alps except in his imagination.

"What better description can you find than in his 'Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good' where he says:--'Bold, overhanging and as it were threatening rocks; clouds up-piled in the heavens; moving along with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder; volcanoes in all their violence of destruction; tornadoes with their swath of devastation; the limitless ocean in a state of uproar and similar spectacles exhibit our power of resistance as insignificantly puny compared to their might. But the spectacle of them is the more fascinating, the more terrible it is and we are p.r.o.ne to call these objects sublime, because they raise the powers of the soul above their accustomed height and discover in us a power of resistance of an entirely different sort--one which gives us the courage to pit ourselves against the apparently infinite power of Nature.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONT BLANC AND THE VALLEY OF CHAMONIX.]

"That is fine," said Ruth, "I had forgotten, indeed I never knew that Kant was such a poet."

"Speaking of poetry," said I, "did you know that Coleridge, who wrote the 'Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni,' had never seen Chamonix or Mont Blanc in his life? Being a poet, he did not need to see with his actual eyes. Moreover he had a model in Frederika Brunn's 'Chamouni at Sunrise,' which runs with a rhythm reminding me of some of Richard Wagner's verses. Do you remember her poem?"

"No, but it is in a note to Coleridge's."

"Please read it."

"'Aus tiefen Schatten des schweigenden Tannenhains, Erblick' ich bebend dich, Scheitel der Ewigkeit, Blendender Gipfel, von dessen Hohe Ahnend mein Geist ins Unendliche schwebet.

"'Wer senkte den Pfeiler in der Erde Schoss, Der, seit Jahrtausenden, fest deine Ma.s.se stutzt?

Wer turmte hoch in des Aethers Wolbung Machtig und kuhn dein umstrahltes Antlitz?

"'Wer goss Euch hoch aus der ewigen Winters Reich?

O Zackenstrome, mit Donnergetos' herab?

Und wer gebietet laut mit der Allmacht Stimme: 'Hier sollen ruhen die starrenden Wogen?'

"'Wer zeichnet dort dem Morgensterne die Bahn?

Wer kranzt mit Bluten des ewigen Frostes Saum?

Wem tont in schrecklichen Harmonieen, Wilder Arveiron, dein Wogengetummel?

"'Jehovah! Jehovah! kracht's im berstenden Eis; Lavinendonner rollen's die Kluft hinab: Jehovah rauscht's in den h.e.l.len Wipfeln, Fl.u.s.tert's an rieselnden Silberbachen.'

"I think that expression, 'Scheitel der Ewigkeit' is ludicrous," said Ruth.

"Coleridge always improved on his originals when he translated, but it looked rather odd for him to have discussed the elements of the scenery in the Alps when he had never been in Savoy. It looks as if he tried to throw dust in people's eyes. But tell me, Ruth, which do you like best the Coleridge 'Hymn' or Sh.e.l.ley's 'Mont Blanc,' which also claims to have been written in the Vale of Chamonix? First you read the lines you like best in Coleridge and then I will read a few pa.s.sages from Sh.e.l.ley."

Ruth took the volume of Coleridge and began. "I like the first twelve lines," she said:--

"'Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon ma.s.s: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity.'"

"Yes," I said, "that 'bald awful head' is better than 'Scheitel der Ewigkeit,' but I don't like the immediate repet.i.tion of 'awful' two lines below; 'as with a wedge,' too, is weak. But go on!"

"'Awake, my soul! not only pa.s.sive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy. Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn!

"'Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale!

O, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink: Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!

Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?

Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?

Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?'"

Again I interrupted:--"I think it is far-fetched to call the mountain 'Earth's rosy star,' and again he uses the word 'rosy' just below: 'who filled thy countenance with rosy light?' That is a weak line, don't you think? 'Visited all night by troops of stars' however is masterly. But go on."

"'And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!

Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered and the same forever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came) Here let the billows stiffen and have rest.

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain--