A walk in the Grisons - F. Barham Zincke

PREFACE.

The sketch contained in this third volume concludes the triptych of my ‘Months in Switzerland.’ The first volume was issued in ’73, the second last spring. A separate volume has been assigned to each sketch. In the original forecast of the work it was anticipated that sufficient range could not be given to it in less than three such sketches. So far, then, as that goes its design is completed.

My object has been to present a continuous picture of the scene, endeavouring throughout to give to its human element such prominence as the occasion might admit. That has now been done for some thousand miles. Of this continuous picture about four hundred miles, these being chiefly in the Grisons, are contained in the following pages.

In concluding the work I will ask my readers to recall two conditions I propounded for their consideration at its commencement, as imposed upon me by the nature of its subject, for, of course, the method of treatment must always be that which the subject makes appropriate. Of these the first is that fulness and minuteness of detail are here, as in a tableau de genre, unavoidable and indispensable. The character of the scenes and objects to be described, our familiarity with them, and the nearness of our point of view are the grounds of this necessity. Fulness and minuteness of detail are, again, required for the sake of the constantly implied comparison with home scenes, and with home life, which underlies the whole narrative, and is one of the sources of whatever interest it may possess, just as it was at the time with the excursions themselves. To this I will beg permission to add what also I have said elsewhere, that in these volumes it is a part of my aim so to take the reader along with me as to enable him to reconstruct the excursions in his own mind, almost as completely as if he had himself been one of the party. I, therefore, give the narrative of all that was seen, and of all that what was seen brought into my mind, not only from day to day, but almost from hour to hour. I should have failed in this part of my aim, if the reader had come to think that more had been seen than really was seen, or that my opportunities were in any respect greater than they really were, or that anything was grander, or more enjoyable, or in any way better, than it really was. If I have succeeded by the method I have followed in presenting a true picture, and if some, whose judgment I am glad to find favourable, think the picture worth looking at, then this part of my purpose is answered. Truth in these matters has a relative as well as an absolute element: the latter, as it belongs to the objects themselves, must needs be an unvarying factor, the former, as it is coloured by the observing eye, cannot but be an ever-varying reflection of times and persons. There are many things we of this day do not see as those who were before us saw them; and those who are to come after us will not see them as we see them. Hence the necessity that each generation should have on all subjects, into which the varying element largely enters, its own books; and this brings me to the second condition of which I am desirous of reminding my readers, which is that this work belongs to the category of those in which the writer’s own impressions, feelings, and opinions are really the main part of what he has, properly, to offer to his readers. He is not engaged in solving some impersonal problem of science, or in discussing some question of history, or of criticism, as impersonally as it may be possible to discuss such questions, but in narrating how the natural scene, about which all will have their own ideas, and how what he saw of everyday life, about which every one will feel differently, impressed himself.

In the following pages I have thought it worth while again to invite attention to the industry, thrift, helpfulness, and honesty of the Swiss peasant proprietors, who are the basis and main stock of the Swiss social system. Some study of them may be of use to us, because we can in them trace up these solid sterling elements of character to their source in the educative power of property, especially of property in land; and the perception of the effects in them of this cause may lead us to inquire whether the character of our own agricultural labourers would not be raised, if they, too, were brought under the educative influences of property. Probably nowhere in Europe, it may be in the world, is the class that cultivates the soil so destitute of property as in this country. He amongst our agricultural labourers must be in an exceptionally good position who owns, or ever will own, anything except his clothes, and a few pounds’ worth of old furniture. To be in this way cut off from all hope of improving their condition in life, and from the civilizing influences of property, and of the pursuit of property, must, one cannot but think, have deteriorating effects on the class. Should what we see elsewhere confirm us in this supposition, then we may become disposed to inquire whether there are not in this country some hindrances, as one cannot but imagine there must be, to the acquisition of property in land by our agricultural labourers; and whether the removal of such hindrances, supposing them to have been discovered, would not have a tendency to engender in the minds of this long disinherited class the idea of acquiring, and the desire to acquire, some little property in land, and so to lead on to their recovering the long-lost mental qualities necessary for enabling them to live by the cultivation of small holdings. In the note at the end of this volume I have endeavoured to show how the loss of these mental qualities was brought about in them.

I said in the first volume of this work, when speaking of peasant properties, that in these days both the man and the land can be turned to better account. What I meant by this, as I there explained, was that an able and energetic man has now opened to him more promising careers than that of living by the cultivation of three or four acres, and that these same few acres also might possibly now be made to yield a greater amount of produce if cultivated scientifically, and with a liberal application of capital. This may be quite true; still, if things had their free course, we might come to find that many of our agricultural labourers were capable of recovering the qualifications needed for this kind of life, which, if we may judge from what we see in other countries, is the natural desire and ambition of a peasantry; and, too, it may be good for a nation so largely commercial and manufacturing as ourselves to have so sturdy and stable a class among the ingredients of its population.

And we may, perhaps, some day come to not dissimilar conclusions with respect to the artizans of our towns. Property, and the pursuit of property, may be found to be a remedy for much that we regret to see in them, and it may be proved to be possible by moral and intellectual training—their wages being already in very many cases sufficient for this purpose—to qualify a fair proportion of them for attaining to the possession of some little capital in money for investments of one kind or another. This appears to be the natural, and, if so, then the readiest and most generally available means for calling forth, and strengthening in them, as in all men, some very valuable elements of character. To this extent, and it is an extent that is far from inconsiderable, property, and the efforts necessary for attaining it, may prove in their case great humanizers. But for the initial desire to acquire property the starting point of a certain moral and intellectual condition is necessary. Roughs and wife-beaters have no thoughts about property. And the vast sum that is year by year squandered by our working classes on intoxicating drinks demonstrates that, as the general rule, among them the idea of property is dim and feeble. This, indeed, may be regarded as almost the distinguishing characteristic of the working classes of this country. Reading, writing, and arithmetic will not of themselves supply what is wanted. They supply tools, and some materials; but tools and materials do not teach us how to build. Training—moral and intellectual training where what has to be built is a human life—will be requisite still. With this to inspire and to guide them their efforts to acquire and to retain property may contribute much towards making them good fathers of families, and useful citizens, by creating in them habits of industry, forethought, thrift, self-reliance, self-restraint, self-respect, and respect for law and order.