Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

We are on our legs again. While gaily making way, apace, down hill, the only effort necessary being that required to prevent our going too fast, we meet three youthful Germans, with, on their large bones, a deal of superfluous flesh, and other matter less solid and more superfluous, painfully toiling up. The two parties salute, as they pass, but with very different feelings. On the way to Muotta we found reason enough for their looking so solemn and dead-beaten. The ascent from that side is at times bad, over long bits of stone-paved pathway: the stones polished by the traffic of centuries to a marvellously smooth surface. One reach of this is through a wood of ancient pine, from the branches of which depend streamers of moss; and on the ground are an abundance of male and female ferns, among which are many fine specimens of Blecnum spicant, with the barren fronds spread out in a flat circle on the earth, and the fruitful ones standing erect from the centre of the circle. This indicates much moisture, which makes the polished surface of the pathway very treacherous. The worst bit is on the last descent towards Muotta. There you have a long, broken-up staircase of glass-smooth (and, if there has been any rain, lubricated) blocks of stone. From the summit to Muotta is not impressive as Alpine scenery. But variety is pleasant; and to be passing through these mountain pastures among herds of cows, and cowherds, with somewhat mountainous barriers left and right, over short, smooth turf, and beside clear, lively streams, on a sunny day, with fresh, breezy air, will satisfy many. For those whom it does not satisfy we can only have—well—but imperfect sympathy.

We reached the further end of the scattered village of Muotta, eighteen miles in six hours’ walking, the halts deducted. Here at the little inn we made the acquaintance of a Parisian homme de lettres. He had come from Brunnen with his wife and another lady for the day. They had a very roomy carriage, and were so good as to offer to give us seats to Brunnen. Ammer, having come to a clandestine understanding with the driver, managed to double himself up on the empty baggage board behind. The Muotta is not outdone by the Klön in the ravine matter: so here, too, you must leave your carriage to see what it has to show in this way. It is at the point where the bridge of the old, and now disused, road crosses the river. Its distinguishing feature is that its almost invisible interstices everywhere support a thick growth of shrubs and small trees. They seem to grow out of the rock, and go near towards hiding the water below them. Part of the new road—I believe it is nearly a century old—is grooved out of the mountain side, two or three hundred feet, in places, above the river. You then pass along the western foot of the Mythen, among innumerable orchards; and so, at last, you reach Brunnen, and the margin of the lake.

It was a lovely evening, with a glorious sunset. The world, in the direction of Stanz, was all ablaze with rapidly changing effects. On the esplanade, in front of the Grand Hotel of the Four Forest Cantons, people of many kindreds and nations had sent their representatives to witness the scene. As I sat on a bench, talking with my new French acquaintance, of course about the future of France and of Europe, he delivered himself, more Gallico, of the following epigram: ‘You make as many revolutions as we do, but with a difference: yours are all bloodless, and for an object.’

The words magnificent and palatial are hardly inapplicable to this great hotel. And it is only one of a class, of which there are several other specimens around the lake. Another, the Axenstein, is close by, on a spur of the Axenberg, over the Axenstrasse. Another is in sight on the Seelisberg, on the opposite side of the lake. At the foot of the lake, at Lucerne, are others of the same kind. And everywhere, along the shores of its tortuous branches, are multitudes of smaller establishments. You recall this, and think that the hundreds of people, who have just left the esplanade of the Hotel of the Four Forest Cantons, at the summons of the supper-bell, are only a small detachment of the thousands of travellers who at that moment are assembled around that single lake. Perhaps you prefer a cigar to a supper; at all events the preference may be allowed on so lovely an evening; and, therefore, you remain seated where you are, on the edge of the lake; and watch the fading, and now white, light above the distant mountains, which have themselves become only black masses. Half an hour ago they were purple, and what is now white above them had then been purple-red, which had passed through ruddy orange to pale gold. You will be looking at the last fading traces of departed day: perhaps, however, you will be thinking of the invading host of travellers, encamped around the lake.

Who are they? They are people, who, formerly, would not have travelled—who, indeed, under the old condition of things would not have existed; for it is new causes, the vast extension, and the rapid profits of trades, manufactures, commerce, and professions, which have called them into existence. This has brought them into the world: railways and steamboats only help them in moving about upon it. And these thousands around you, for the practice of travelling has with this class become general, are merely the contingent it has sent, this year, to this spot. They will all come in their turn. Travelling is a regular part of their education; as much so as what they learn at school, and in their respective callings.

These middle-class throngs have, of late years, taken the place of the few territorial magnates, who, formerly, went what was called then, and was so under the circumstances of those times, the grand tour. They have not ceased to go the grand tour; but they are lost to sight now in these middle-class multitudes. In the days of the grand tour the few, who were on their travels, were somewhat conspicuous, like the large trees in their open parks, standing, detached, here and there; but now a forest has grown up all around these large, detached trees; and they cannot anywhere be seen for the forest.

And you go on to think that it is not merely on the road, and in the grand hotels, which have been built for them, that this great middle class has made the territorial magnates almost invisible, but that it has also, to a very considerable extent, begun to take their place in Parliament, and as the governing class. Parliament now, and every Government, are largely composed of its members. You are reminded that an old order of things is passing away, and a new coming in its place. These travellers are an indication not only of the existence, but of the numbers and wealth, the power and activity, of the most prominent element in that new order. To it they belong, and here they are to you its representatives. These grand hotels are a gauge of its numbers and wealth.

But the trail of thought does not stop at this point. A mighty element in the new order of things is not at all represented here—that element of modern societies which was so seen and felt in the Paris Commune, that all Europe is now occupied in debating how it is to be dealt with, or rather what place it will achieve for itself in the immediate future. It is the class of the working hands of the vastly-developed trade, manufactures, and commerce of the day. They have remained working hands, because, as things have hitherto been in the world, there has been no way to emerge from that class but that of saving; and saving requires a combination of favourable circumstances and of suitable qualities, first among the latter of which comes that of a genius for saving. It was the turning to account of this combination, which existed in their own case, or in that of their fathers, that enabled far the larger part of the absolutely many, but, relatively to the number of the working hands, comparatively few, whom we have just been thinking about, to emerge from the working mass; and to become capitalists, that is to say members of the middle class: for capital is the product of saving—of saving only, and of nothing else. And capital, either invested or employed, is the support of the great middle class, and of the various professions, dependent mainly on it, whether they be recruited from above, or from below: capital is its support, just as the rent of land is that of the upper class, and wages that of the lower or working class.

The trail of thought, then, passes on to the unemerged—the vast army of working hands. And the question is asked, What is, and what will be, their relation to the class so largely represented here, before us, by the many more or less wealthy travellers, for whom these grand hotels have been built? One thing is certain: the working hands can no longer be kept down by the middle, capital-supported class, any more than the middle class itself could have been kept down by the upper land-supported class—the territorial magnates. Force was sufficient for such purposes under the old, rude, simple, bygone order of things. Now it is but a broken reed to lean upon; and will only pierce the hand that would lean upon it. It is the masses, indeed, who now possess the strength of numbers, together with growing intelligence, and means for communicating and combining. You wish to look into the future. It is, to some extent, a clue to its unevolved possibilities, that, under the conditions now establishing themselves, force, in the old significance of the word, will not be the principle, the bond, the dependence, the cement of society. What, then, will be? Nothing can be suggested, but knowledge, intelligence, justice. If they cannot exorcise the evil spirits that may torment modern societies, there is nothing else to turn to. Should, then, an honest attempt be made to spread knowledge, to cultivate intelligence, and to be just to all, we are not without hope. In all changes that come in the natural order of things, what is needed is indicated, and more or less brought about, by the very course of events. Happily, amongst ourselves, the course of events and legislation are working together in the desired direction. All cannot emerge, but all may be raised to a common level. This is what is now being brought about. The artisan now reads the same newspapers, eats the same bread, travels by the same train, interchanges thought by the post on the same terms, and is endowed with the same amount of political power, as the class that was formerly the most favoured. And, now, education, which, because it is the most elevating, is, therefore, the most equalizing, of all agencies, is being provided for his children. We will, therefore, trust that what the travelling middle class see in the many lands they visit, and their meditations on what they see, will bring home to them as a clear conviction, and as of the sort that ought to be acted on, as well as acknowledged, that it will be their wisdom to accept frankly these inevitable changes. And this may be the best way of bringing the working hands on their side to understand, and practically to recognize, the duties of their new position.

August 22.—Our plan had been to climb Pilatus, and having slept at the hotel on the summit, to go down in the morning to Alpnach. The vote, however, which issued in this decision, had been taken in the absence of le petit caporal. We now found that the whole question must be reconsidered. On this having been done, the original vote was reversed, unconstitutionally, by the minority. The new decision was, that we must take the railway to the top of the Rigi. This idea had not, in the first consideration of the subject, been lost sight of; but had been rejected from a sense of the cockneyism of going up a Swiss mountain, in a mob of tourists, by rail. It turned out, however,—a result not new to history—that the minority was not wrong.