The Germans come next in number to those who speak our own tongue, they are quiet, honest, and earnest; and have evidently come to Switzerland for the purpose—there is no doubt about that—of constructing in their minds a correct idea of the nucleus, and central watershed, of Europe. But, as few of us speak German, there is little intercourse between them and English travellers.
Among the inmates of all these large hotels, because it is in them that such wanderers find most nearly what suits them, there remains a conspicuous residuum, that of those who have nothing in the world to do, and who, as thoroughly as if they were peak-and-pass-men, do it. They belong to all countries: Russia, France, England, and America supply each its respective quota. They are, for the most part, carefully, sometimes rather loudly got up: they have not much else to attend to. And from this, perhaps also from a little assumption in their manner, they contrive somewhat to obtrude themselves on the general notice of the world in the hotel. They belong to the class of failures, the coups manqués, of civilised humanity. They are the waifs and strays of modern society, with money enough, and often plenty of it, to live out of their own country. Sometimes with not enough left to live at home as they once did. They have no sense of home, nor love of country; but a sufficient sense of the duty men owe to themselves. You sometimes hear them intimating, as a reason for their voluntary expatriation, that they do not quite like their own country, and countrymen—perhaps no great proof of the demerit of either, or of their own judgment. The largest portion of the self-depreciators of this kind belong to the English quota of the class.
The disciples of so exalted and serene a philosophy, having got beyond home, and country, and all inconveniently large ideas of duty, can have no prejudices. Pet ideas, however, like the rest of the world, they have; and the one they most pet is expressed in our time-honoured, home-manufactured phrase, though amongst ourselves its use is prompted by the anxieties and fears of deep love, that ‘the sun of England has set.’ This is quite intelligible in a certain class of Frenchmen and Russians. The wish, with them, was father to the thought. They, as might have been expected, have become dazzled at the excess of light which radiates from our sun, and can now only look at it through the green lens. This old familiar phrase, coming from such oracular lips (but the announcement as it comes from them is history, not prophecy, for it is the announcement of a fait accompli), is accepted, with thorough satisfaction, by those of our countrymen who are disposed to regard its promulgators with submissive admiration, and are vainly endeavouring to form themselves on their model. They are only too thankful for any crumbs which fall from such tables. But be this as it may, the business of these wanderers is to go up and down, and to and fro, upon the earth. In this respect their occupation resembles the description the reprobate sprite gave of his. And he, too, had lost the sense, if we may so put it, of home, and country, and duty; and must also have had in his eyes some tint of green. But they go only where locomotion and life are easy; and where they may expect to find the society of congenial sprites, who will not ruffle them, will not be blind to their merits, and will take them, occasionally, at the price they set upon themselves.
It may, then, be placed on the credit side of the account of these scientifically managed hotels, though, at the time, one, being averse to entering them, and not averse to leaving them, is not disposed to credit them with much good, that they supply some materials for ‘the proper study of mankind.’ It was not, however, for the purpose of obtaining facilities for the prosecution of this study that you came to Switzerland: perhaps, rather it was that you might lose sight of it for a time.
CHAPTER XV.
BERNE—SWISS FOUNTAINS—ZURICH—MUSEUM OF RELICS FROM ANCIENT LAKE-VILLAGES—BAUR EN VILLE—RÉCOLTE DES VOYAGEURS—C’EST UN PAUVRE PAYS
Beyond compare, of all things best
Is water.—Pindar.
September 19.—We spent the day at Vevey. Vineyards were everywhere along the sides of the railway. It is pleasing to note the care with which the vine, that peerless gift of Nature’s bounty to man, is cultivated; how the land is terraced and fenced, and how scrupulously clean it is kept. This indicates the value of the land that is adapted to its growth, and is in keeping with the character of the gift. Had a swim in the lake. My first plunge into it was thirty-one years ago, on returning to Geneva from a walking expedition to Chamouni.