Читать книгу The Collected Letters of Henry Northrup Castle - Henry Northrup Castle - Страница 13

VENICE, Sunday, July 27, ’79.

DEAR MOTHER,

I take up my pen to write you, after a silence of more than two weeks, my last effort being dated at London, I believe. It does not seem long measuring by time, but by space, how much —London-Venice, England-Italy. These small dashes measure events, to which they bear the relation that a map does to the countries we have traversed. We received your letter last night, our first word from you, I believe. All this time we have waited with a feeling of sadness at your silence. Ah! be silent no more, my Mother, silent no more. You must go to New York, you know, Mother, though what is the use of telling you that? When this letter reaches you, you will have already gone, or else you will be proof against persuasions.

I have read the passage in Romans which you mentioned, once to-day and once in course, since I left home. I have been a very bad boy since I left Oberlin, have not read in The Book much and been thoughtful and decent, but have been cross and mean, and selfish and unsacrificing, like the rest of the world. It is push and grab and snatch in this world, Mother, and the weakest goes to the wall. All the religion that I have manifested has been in pulling a long face occasionally, and judging other people in self-righteousness. A conscience is a very awkward thing to have about one on a European tour, when you do not live right every day, but fail constantly, and with seventy people around you, whose motto is: “In Rome do as the Romans do,” and not “Be not conformed to the world.” However, I do not know but it is just as well, or rather far better, to take for one’s motto the first, “Do as the Romans do,” and live up to it, as to take the second and “Do as the Romans do,” as I do. However, mother, I think you need not be alarmed about me in one respect. If I go to the bad, the same things will take me there, in Paris as in Oberlin. It is not drinking wine and smoking and going to the opera Sunday night, etc., etc. (which temptations I will encounter in Paris), which will ruin me. For I have vices, which will operate in this case as virtues. They are prejudice and innate “contrariness,” stubbornness and mulishness. A little opposition will only make me more set than ever. So do not be scared about Paris, mother. I should like to stay and study in Paris, and then again I should not. So far as I have anything to say about it, I do not know which I should do.

The girls and Jim have gone to St Mark’s to hear high mass. This afternoon, Mr. Gray expects to take the party sightseeing, to see the Doges Palace and a picture gallery. I shall not go, of course. Neither, I guess, will Jim and the girls. Venice is a lovely place. Our hotel fronts on the Grand Canal, and we do our travelling by water. Morantic or romantic, is it not? Last night we had a beautiful sail around the city, under the Bridge of Sighs and out in the harbor. We went out two or three miles to the Island of Ledo, from which there was a fine view of the blue waves of the Adriatic. The sail both out and back was fine. The after glow lingered a long while, and the reflection of the city lights in the water was very fine, reminding me of a walk Jim and I took on a bridge over the Rhine at Cologne, about 10 o’clock at night. Just think, mother, we came from the depot to our hotel propelled by a gondolier. Didn’t go to church to-day, stayed and read some in my Testament. Lovely lady rooms next me, and I am going to desert you and this letter and go and look, with her, over some Bible texts or cards, or something she has with her. I know you will be pleased that that is the worst reason I have for ending this letter here. We are all in usual health, I believe. Be sure to write often.

Lovingly,

HENRY.

ROME, Sunday, August 3, ’79.

MY DEAR MOTHER,

It is Sunday morning, as possibly you perceive from the heading of this letter, and some of the people have gone sightseeing as usual, and some have gone to church, some, I presume, to St Peter’s and other Catholic establishments, and a few to Protestant dittoes, and some are asleep. It is very quiet and seeming more like Sunday than it has for a long time. There is that peculiar subduedness and stillness about everything that marks so plainly the day. Quite unlike the Sundays one is accustomed to enjoy in the second section. But then this, perhaps, is to be accounted for by the absence of most of the aforementioned section. None of our party went to church. Helen and Carrie are asleep upstairs, Jim and Miss White writing at a table down here, and I at another table. The room is the “reception room” of our hotel, the Costanzi, said to be one of the finest hotels in Europe. I presume it is, as it is one of the best we have been in. Everything shows we are in Rome. The ceilings are painted in classic style. Even the butter tells us that this is the “Eternal City.” It is stamped with the Capitoline wolf and Romulus and Remus. The water is perfectly good. In fact, the water has been good all along, and the talk about the water in Europe is all “poppycock” any way, to use an inelegant phrase. Italy is a fraud. It is hot, flat, dry, dusty. The Italian sky is another fraud. It is a cloudless, red hot, burning one, and the air is hot and dry. The vegetation is seared and brown. There is no pleasant coloring to rest the eyes. However, in the shape of tropical vegetation we have met with some old friends. Figs abound. The cactus and prickly pear and century plant lift up their heads and bid us welcome. That terribly sharp thing in sister Ellie’s yard, we have met somewhere in our travels.

Rome is a very interesting city. I like it better than any we have yet visited. We arrived here Thursday night, about five o’clock, from Florence, after a hot and dusty ride of eight hours. We went nowhere that night, except to bed. The party in Rome is resigned by Mr. Gray to Mr. Forbes, a gentleman many years resident in Rome, and an antiquarian and student. I believe he knows Rome well, and I suppose we could have been placed in no better hands. The plan of sightseeing has been changed here, much for the better, all think. Heretofore we have left the hotel at half-past eight or nine for a long siege through the hottest part of the day, returning utterly fagged out, dirty and starved, at about three o’clock, when we were served up to a dinner, calculated to refresh our weary souls. But now we go out at nine, returning at twelve to a simple lunch and rest till three. Then go again till six, coming back to a consoling dinner. This is not half as tiring as the other method. The first morning we drove in the carriages on to the Pincian hill, from which there is a fine view of a considerable part of the city, including St. Peter’s and the castle of St. Angelo. Off in the distance was seen the Janiculum, while spread out nearer us was the farm of Cincinnatus. This was intensely interesting to me. Not at all so to Jim and the girls. The hill was formerly occupied by the gardens of Marcellus. We next crossed over the Tiber, by the bridge of Hadrian, some 1700 years old, I believe.

Passing by the castle of St. Angelo, formerly Hadrian’s tomb, we came to St. Peter’s. Lofty as the dome is, it is entirely hidden from view before the steps are reached, and no one would dream that there was any there. St. Peter’s is the largest church in the world, having an area, I believe, of some 76,000 square yards. It is built in the form of a Latin cross, and experienced some strange vicissitudes. Passing from architect to architect, it was more than a hundred years in building, and in the hands of most the plan was changed. Michael Angelo built most of the dome. The interior is very richly adorned, and Baedeker says meretriciously. The effect, nevertheless, is very imposing. Service was being performed and, as usual, was very interesting to me. I am commencing to like the smell of incense. I like to watch the priests, too, go through their parts, and look for the devotion, but sad to say, all only strengthens my previously beforehand conclusions on the subject of Catholicism and the Catholic Church, I am convinced that they are “frauds,” and the lesson has been read to me in twenty churches. It may have been wrongly read, I cannot tell about that, but certainly I have so read it.

From St. Peter’s we proceeded to the Vatican, the palace of the popes. Very respectable size, only 11,000 rooms. Saw pictures upon pictures, many famous ones, all bores. Raphael’s “Transfiguration” among them. We visited the Sixtine Chapel, also a bore. Ugly old place. Bore like the rest of them. The fact is, I should prefer not to see any more pictures. When I come to Rome to stay, why, on top of a good dinner, I should like to go to the Vatican with opera glasses and a good catalogue, and study some of the pictures for a few hours every day, studying upon art and its history meanwhile. That is the only way to see pictures in these big galleries. Not that heretofore it has been all of it useless. Not at all. But it is becoming so.

Leaving the Vatican, we went to a gallery of statues, and then made for the hotel. In the afternoon, Jim and the girls were too used up to go out, and so I went alone. We saw the column of Marcus Aurelius, the theatre of Marcellus, the lower part of which is occupied by bad-smelling shops; the temple of Hercules in the cattle dealers forum, dating from the time of Vespasian; the pyramid of Caius Cestius, 116 feet high, 90 feet base, 1900 years old, built, on the outside at least, with white marble, now black; the hill where Remus stood to watch the flight of birds, the church of St. Paul, one of the finest modern churches in existence, etc., etc. We got upon a bridge over the “yellow Tiber,” and looked down upon the remains of the bridge, which Horatius defended against Lars Porsena. It did not seem that his swimming the river could be any very great feat, but it was probably higher then than now, as the poem says:

Swollen high with months of rain,

And far his blood was flowing,

And he was sore in pain,

And heavy with his armor,

And spent with changing blows.

which explains the performance satisfactorily. We saw also the drain built by Tarquin the Great 500 years before Christ, still used by the city. Quite wonderful, I thought. And the Pons Æmilius, 2000 years old. And the Fabrician bridge and Pons Cestius, dating back, I believe, to 100 B. C. There too, near the river, was the house of Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes.

A drive through the Jews quarter was very interesting. Some of the party tossed pennies to the crowd, and then what a scramble there was! And many a fall! It is a wonder they were not all run over. They followed us for some distance, old women and young children, boys and girls, begging, shouting, running. One little girl, not very little either, carried along a baby in her arms and held out its little paw to receive money. Nor was she unsuccessful either, but twice got something given her, and each time her own hand was quickly substituted for the youngster’s. Some of the old women, if I read them aright, looked a trifle ashamed of themselves, for a more disgraceful scramble for a few coppers by people who did not appear to be in want, I never saw. In this quarter we had pointed out to us the house of St. Paul, his “own hired house,” in which he lived two years while in Rome. Of course, it cannot be proved that this was his house, yet it seems quite probable, from various circumstances. It is a house of the first century, and the only one thereabouts, I believe. Then I think that it is that quarter of the city in which he lived. And there is a tradition among the Jews, handed down from father to son, that it was in that house that St. Paul lived. Out near St. Paul’s church, we had pointed out to us a spot, where, it was said, Paul bade Peter good-bye, when the latter was led out to execution on a neighboring hill. It is the first yarn of the Catholic Church that I wish were true. What a parting that would have been! But as I am told that there is not the slightest evidence that Peter ever came to Rome, why, I will have to give that up as one of the delicate little fictions with which Mother Church is wont to regale herself.

Then we visited the Pantheon. Celebrated structure! Perfectly round it is, with a large hole in the middle, as quite possibly you may know. This hole has twenty-seven feet in diameter, and is the only opening by which the building is lighted. However, a window twenty-seven feet in diameter does very well. The dome is one hundred and forty feet in diameter and one hundred and forty feet high. Within are buried Raphael and Victor Emanuel. It is to be the future burial place for the Kings of Italy. Then we returned home.

After dinner we took a carriage and drove out to see the Colosseum by moonlight, which, of course, we could not afford to lose, as the event proved. I never enjoyed anything so. It was quite a drive there. Suddenly, just before arriving at the Colosseum, the Roman forum, with all its ruins, came into view. It startled me, as I did not expect to see it, not knowing that it was in that part of the city. The moonlight was ghostly, and the forum, with the ruined temples and triumphal arches, broken columns and fallen pillars clustered around it, looked like a city of the dead. Then passing under the arch of Titus and by the arch of Constantine, the Colosseum appeared in full view. We went in and walked around. Carrie and I climbed up some half-ruined steps and, looking out of a window, had a fine view of the whole forum with all its majestic ruins.

We returned home via an ice-cream saloon and indulged, solaced by the music which was kept up by a gentleman, lady and piano. There does not appear to be any special danger from malaria here. It is perfectly safe to go out in the evening, and we keep our windows open nights, contrary to the advice of some cautious people. The seven hills of Rome are a fraud. They are practically invisible. This hotel is situated on the Esquiline hill, where used to be the gardens of Sallust. Interesting to me, as I read Sallust last term. We leave for Naples Monday night or Tuesday morning, and already I see in my mind’s eye Pompeii and Vesuvius. If you see French, bless him for me. Tell him to write. Love to Uncle and Aunt. Tell Auntie not to work too hard. Love to all the home folks. Also to Lucius. Keep a good slice of love for yourself and be happy.

Lovingly,

HENRY.

ROME, Sunday, August IO, ’79.

MY DEAR MOTHER,

Here I am, the very first thing after writing the “dear mother,” inquiring what to say. This you know, mother, is chronic with me. And yet I ought to have enough to say, after travelling all over Europe. But an empty-headed boy always will be an empty-headed boy, I suppose, in Europe, America, or the Islands. And that quite evidently is my fix. To us disconsolate and forlorn, after long waiting, the mail came from the Islands, with a letter of yours enclosed. It was welcome, indeed. Nothing has made me so homesick for a perfect age as those letters. For once they made me feel as if I were in Rome, in very truth, at a most awful distance from home. You will notice from the heading of this letter that I am back again in Rome, after an absence of four days (from Monday night till Saturday morning), to spend Sunday. The time for starting for Naples was Tuesday morning, but some of us preferred to go Monday night, among whom were Carrie and myself. We found Naples a respectable place. That is, I did. The rest did not like it very well by reason of the fleas, mosquitoes and heat, I believe. The first two did not disturb me, and the last was mitigated by a cool sea breeze, and compensated for by the swimming and delightful view of the bay and Vesuvius. We had a very good time at Naples, only we loafed too much, our getting lazy being due in part, I suppose, to the climate. I found many resemblances in Naples to the Islands, and liked it better therefore.

To-morrow at noon we leave for Pisa, and I am glad. Naples, you may notice, is the end or limit of our European tour. We are now homeward bound; but it is quite a journey homeward. I long to get out of hot Italy into cool, beautiful Switzerland; Italy is so dry and dusty. I don’t see how any nation could ever have arisen to the greatness of the Romans in it. But quite likely they were preserved from invasion for a long time by the fear of the heat which it seems to me all reasonable barbarians must have experienced. Last Monday we visited the most interesting sights in Rome. The Roman Forum, with all the interesting buildings in and around it, among which is the Temple of Castor and Pollux. At the battle of Lake Regillus these kind gentlemen assisted the Romans materially. They then trotted into the city, announced the result of the battle, and washed their horses in a spring in the Forum, the site of which was shown us. In commemoration of the event, this temple was erected. We were to have our pictures taken here, but the light was too bright, and our faces all came out black. I think the reason was that they were dirty, but the first-mentioned cause is given by those in authority. In any case the result was disastrous and sad, for I was ensconced in a most romantic situation leaning against a pillar, and of course I felt sad at the result. But such is life. Give Lucius my love, and French also, if you see him; bestow my benediction upon him, please, and tell him to write.

With much love,

HENRY.

My staying is about given up. My certificate stating that I wish to return Sept. 4th is signed, and will be given in I suppose. So, comfort your soul, my Mother. H. N. C.

ON THE WAY FROM GENOA TO MILAN,

August 13, 1879.

MY DEAR MOTHER,

Just now killing time is the chief duty of man; and you can easily judge what an imperative duty it must be when its performance induces one to write on the cars, an act of all in the world the most painful. However, if you can stand it I can. The only way to get any just conception of the size of Italy is to travel over it by rail, then one gets a very definite idea of very disagreeable immensity. I believe myself that Italy is nearer Tartarus (a polite and eminently classical name for hell) than any country I ever was in before or ever want to be in again.

Tourists are the most afflicted, abused, long-suffering people I ever saw. They are put through a course of sprouts (sight-seeing) terrible to think upon, and they stand it with commendable patience. The capacity to endure, I think Miss Muloch says somewhere, is the greatest of the human soul, and travelling affords one the best opportunity for developing it. But it is a trial as by fire. If you can stand it—if there is gold in you, you will come out refined, but otherwise nothing but dross, and you will develop instead a most terrible ability to cus. That’s my case. The literal fire has burned everything away but the dross, and my morals are irretrievably ruined. Since I wrote you last we have made our start north and “done,” perpetrated, waded through, oh, so painfully, Pisa and Genoa, or rather the railroad ride from Rome to Genoa. These rides, as well as their old palaces all over Europe, are chopped off by the thousand like the brown stone fronts in New York and sold by the yard. When you have experienced one you have been through them all. The programme is heat, dust, and a crawling pace, varied occasionally by a tunnel or a villainous old castle on some height. An exception is found here and there to this programme, only to prove the rule. The ride from Rome to Pisa was not one of the exceptions. CHAMONIX, Sunday 17.—1 have just found this letter, and so I think I will finish it. We arrived in the diligence here to-night, after a ride of about nine or ten hours through the Tête Noire Pass. The scenery was very fine, though, on the whole, inferior to the Simplon. The reason we travelled Sunday was this. The diligence from Domo Dossola to Brieg was late, and lost the train by which we were intending to proceed to Vernayaz. We were therefore compelled to remain at Brieg over night. In the morning Mr Gray announced that it would be too long a ride to Chamonix, so we would go to Vernayaz only that day, and to Chamonix the next—Sunday. However, I have spent a good Sunday, notwithstanding. We walked a long way up the Pass and I was completely alone, with not a person in sight, for some time. The scenery, the view, both up and down, was beautiful; and with the noise of flowing water in my ears, and breathing the fresh mountain air, I sat down on a fence and read my Testament —heard the “Written Word interpreted by Nature.” I also indulged in performances not so creditable perhaps. For instance, plundering the cherry trees along the route. (They were public property.) My conscience does not reproach me for that, however. But I felt disappointed to lose my quiet Sunday at Chamonix; I had looked forward to it so much. But here we are at last in full view of Mont Blanc, of which we have a fine view from our window, as also one of the Mer de Glace. I stopped to write this letter, or the last part of it and my other to you, and will now go to bed. Love to all the folks.

HENRY.

CHAMONIX, Aug. 17, ’79.

MY DEAR MOTHER,

I commenced a letter to you on the war-path from Pisa to Genoa, or Genoa to Milan, I forget which, but the thing has disappeared somewhere or other. If I find it I will send it on. In any case you will not lose much. Since my last to you, written from Rome a week ago to-day, the grandest act of all our travels has been ushered in—I mean that we have left Italy and are in cool, beautiful Switzerland at last. Yes, Mother, we have crossed the Alps; the grandest scenery I ever saw or ever expect to see has been traversed, and here we are in the “Vale of Chamonix.” To-day, yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, by which circumlocution I mean four days, have been, I may say, among the most wonderful of my life. We arrived at Milan Wednesday night, Aug. 13th, the day after Father’s birthday. The next morning we visited the Milan Cathedral, of course, and ascended the tower for a view of the roof of the Cathedral, wonderful, you know, for its extraordinary elaborateness of adornment, and also the plains of Lombardy, neither being worth seeing (?) We—that is, Carrie and I, with most of the section—started for Lake Maggiore at 11 A.M. Jim, Helen, and Miss White did not go. We had a most magnificent sail on the Lake, recalling in beauty Loch Lomond. Leaving the steamer at Stresa, after a two-hours’ sail, we were served a good dinner, after which interesting episode, we took a boat and had a sail out to an island, about fifteen minutes’ row. This island was beautiful in the extreme. It was all terraced, and laid out into magnificent gardens. There was a palace on the island, the first we had seen! (??), and we surveyed it with much interest, as usual.. But the garden got ahead of all. We spent about an hour and a quarter here, and then returned singing “Home, Sweet Home,” and other tunes on the way. They chimed in well with the scenery. Immediately upon returning, about half-past seven P.M., several of us took a splendid swim in the lake, the most delightful I have had since leaving the islands. We started about 11 P.M. in the diligences for the passage of the Alps by the Simplon Pass. Riding all night, sleeping a little and seeing a little, we arrived at Domo Dossola early in the morning, where we breakfasted in the court-yard of the hotel, with no roof above us but the blue sky. We were supposed to have an hour and a half here for breakfast, resting and a general good time, but lo and behold, before I had my coffee poured, Mr Gray announced that it had dwindled to fifteen minutes. I ate all I had time for, and jammed the rest in my pocket—legitimate? We now came very soon into grand scenery that altogether beggars description. I extemporized a seat on the top, and got Carrie up there, and we had a general good time. Jim and the rest caught up with us in a few hours, which added of course to the enjoyment. The Alps abound with water—delicious cold streams in which many times I washed and drank that day and laved my burning brow. It is late, and I must go to bed, as a slight preparation for the Mer de Glace excursion to-morrow. This letter has told positively nothing, and it is impossible that I should tell anything in less than 20 sheets. I must learn to glean. All I say now is, this is beautiful and that is beautiful, the extent of my descriptions and ideas.

With love,

HENRY.

INTERLAKEN, Sunday, Aug. 24, ’79.

DEAR MOTHER,

Aug. 24th finds us at Interlaken, nearly ready to leave Switzerland. The idea most present in the mind just now is that our grand European tour is nearly ended. Less than two weeks will pass, and the Atlantic will receive us to its cold embrace again. Usually the thought would be one of pleasure, but just now my stomach doesn’t feel very good, and the result is that the very thought of the ocean is sickening. Strange how one’s enjoyment of things and ideas of life depend on the state of his system. Nine out of ten of a man’s heart troubles and discontents and weariness pf life may be laid to dyspepsia. Switzerland is a beautiful country’ and pleasure unalloyed has been the programme of the last week. The being too continually in the presence of beautiful scenery has a tendency to make me a little thoughtful—by no means disagreeable for a change. Chamonix, Geneva, Chillon, Fribourg, Berne, Interlaken. That includes a beautiful sail on the Lake of Geneva, and another still more beautiful one on the Lake of Thun. I also forgot yesterday’s programme — Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Staubbach, Grindelwald, the ice cave, and back to Interlaken. Switzerland has one delightful feature apart from its scenery, which I have forgotten to mention, and that is honey! Ah! what does not that magic word express! Honey for breakfast! I have gone back on coffee altogether now, and eat nothing for breakfast but bread, butter, and honey.

Interlaken is a beautiful place—one of the most beautiful we have visited. The village is composed mostly of hotels. So, at least, appearances say, and has as well, so they say, only one street, though I guess there are some small ones poking around somewhere. Our hotel faces a large square or park, and commands a delightful view of the hills and snow-capped mountains in the distance. This morning, after breakfast, we took a walk of an hour or so around in the neighbourhood, and then I went to church at eleven o’clock. We had walked around the little churchyard beforehand, and it was very nice and pretty. English, Scotch, Presbyterian, and Catholic Churches are all in one building. I liked it. It seemed like an acknowledgment from each to each, that they were all worshipping God, and that the difference was one of form and method only, not of spirit. I went to the Scotch Presbyterian Church, and as the service proceeded, we heard the singing from one of the other Churches. They had the Psalms rigged up in rhyme. It was perfectly abominable. I think they made y rhyme with high. They sung too long, too—ten verses at one time. It made my back ache. I sat down. The sermon was a good one from the text: “They feared the Lord; but served their gods.”—(I don’t know whether I have that straight or not)—a passage of scripture always applicable to the second section, now as much as any time. This afternoon at five we leave Interlaken for Giessbach, via the Lake of Brienz. There we will have dinner, and then we witness the illumination of the falls by means of coloured lights. Not a very Sunday-like programme, you think, but there is no help for it; we must start or be left behind. Besides, there is but little difference between gazing reverently and worshipfully upon Nature, and reading the Bible; but the chief difficulty is the crowd and bustle. Much is crowded into little here. To-morrow witnesses the passage over the Brünig Pass, and sunset from the Rigi. The next day sees us at Lucerne. Then comes the grand sail on the Lake of the Four Cantons. And Wednesday night off for Paris. Metcalf must room with me next term. I will be dreadfully lonely without him. And now, mother, it will not be long before I see you face to face. Oh, what a day that will be! And what a host of recollections I will have to carry around with me of the most wonderful ten weeks I ever spent. Give my love to Aunt Mary and Uncle Thompson. Keep a large slice for yourself.

Lovingly,

HENRY.

LUCERNE, Tuesday Aug. 26, ’97.

DEAR MOTHER,

I take up my pen to write you at Lucerne about three in the afternoon, whiling away in the operation the three long hours which must elapse before the cheerful sound of the dinner bell is heard. To-day and yesterday have been great days with me, yesterday witnessing the journey from Giessbach via the Brünig Pass to Lucerne, and from thence to the Rigi Kulm, and to-day the sunrise from the top, the descent of the mountain, and the grand sail upon the lake of the Four Cantons, which nearly drops the curtain upon the hills and valleys, lakes and rivers, snowfields and glaciers of Switzerland. The short time that has elapsed since the morning sun found us within the borders of this pleasant land in the heart of the grandest of Alpine passes seems an age. Putting a man through Europe in the style in which we have traversed it is like placing him in a jar of oxygen—he lives fast. And so with us three months seem as many years. Yesterday afternoon at five found us a dusty, seedy-looking crowd, as usual, arrived at Lucerne for a fifteen-minutes’ stay preparatory to retaking the steamer en route for the Rigi Kulm. Some delay being made about a steamer or a train (I had not the curiosity to discover which), many of the party commenced to agitate the question of remaining at Lucerne, and letting the Rigi (to use an inelegant expression) go to grass. I didn’t take worth a cent. The rest of our party did, saving Carrie only, who would have liked to well enough, but was deterred by reason of her superior morals. I was going to the Rigi or die. I went, and here I am alive and well. We started from the pier about six, I think, and arrived at Vitznan, where we took the train for the summit in an hour or so. The Rigi railroad, as well as all appertaining to it, is very remarkably peculiar, The ascent is something tremendous—one foot in five, we are given to understand by Mr Baedeker. Up, up, up, we went. It is a wonder (and a pity) that we didn’t go sliding down and break our necks. We were too late for sunset, but caught a good deal of the glow going up. Beautiful were the views revealed to us from time to time of mountain and lake. As we neared the summit, the train rose into the clouds. We got off the train in the clouds, and climbed up to the magnificent hotel in the clouds, and roamed in them, and took dinner in them, and ended by sleeping in them. I prefer them at a distance, however. They are nasty, damp, wet things. At five in the morning a man started up Yankee Doodle and Glory Hallelujah in the hall just outside my door, on one of these big horns. I jumped up, and looked out of my window. A long streak of gold appearing in the east above the distant mountains announced the coming of the day. I jumped into my clothes at one fell swoop, and hurried out. It was cold as Greenland’s Icy Mountains and Injy’s Coral Strand. The grand panoramma was beginning to reveal itself in the mist. Spreading out at our feet lay two lakes, seeming so near that one would think a stone thrown from a vigorous arm would sink within their waters. The brightness in the east changed and changed, the light tipped the mountain tops, the clouds rolled away, and the sun rose at last and “deluged” hill, lake, and valley, with his beams. But why attempt to describe? The thing is all done up in fine poetic style in the Guide-Book, with all the “roseate hues” and “flush of the dawns,” &c., &c., put in in the right places. The most impressive thing about the whole business was the cold, which was Satanic (as it were). We gobbled our breakfast, ate all we could lay hold of, and decamped at half-past seven. The engine puffed and swelled away, and took us down the mountain. We started for the sail about nine o’clock, and arrived here about half-past one, leaving out Billy Tell and the apple. Love to all the folks. Large slice to yourself. Remember me to Auntie and Uncle,

With love,

HENRY.