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.
PARIS, Sunday, Aug. 31, 1879.
MY DEAR MOTHER,
I write you this in the hope that it will reach you before the steamer of September 4th comes bearing to you Jim and Helen, but no Henry and no Carrie. That is, if the fates of men and of gods don’t forbid. Yes, Mother, Carrie is to stay and prosecute her music, as it were, and I to study. The explanation
