One finds this vein of poetry in the writings of most men of science—naturally, seeing that they used gifts of imagination differing from those of the poet only in being disciplined and chastened, and ready to submit to the thraldom of the established fact. Sometimes, indeed, the vein of poetry has interfered with business, as in the case of the ingenious Scheuchzer, who laid himself out to prove that there were dragons in the Alps, or, in a less degree, in the case of Buffon. But, whether it interferes with business or not, there the vein of poetry almost always is. Such old men of science as Conrad Gesner, and such modern men of science as Huxley and Tyndall, have shown us with what striking effect it can be worked. It is because de Saussure worked it so well that his writings still live, though, regarded merely as textbooks, they have long since been superseded.
The humanity of the man is continually flashing out at us in the reflections and anecdotes with which he illustrates the manners of the strange peoples in the strange places which he visited. Sometimes it is a flash of humour, as when he inquires the motives that impel men to be chamois-hunters, a trade that never pays. ‘It is the dangers,’ he concludes; ‘the constant alternation of hopes and fears, the continual emotion thus engendered, which excite the hunter, just as they excite the gambler, the soldier, the navigator, and even, to a certain extent, the naturalist of the Alps.’
Sometimes it is a touch of pathos, as in the story of the old woman of Argentière whose father, husband, and brothers had all perished, within a few days, from an epidemic:
‘After she had given me some milk, she asked me where I came from, and what I was doing there at that season of the year. When she knew that I was from Geneva, she told me that she could not believe that all the Protestants were to be damned; that God was too good and too just to condemn us all without distinction. Then, after reflecting for a moment, she shook her head and added: “But what is so strange to me is that of all those who have been taken away from us, not one has ever come back. I,” she went on, with a look of pain “have wept so for my husband and my brothers, and have never ceased to think of them, and every night I implore them to tell me where they are, and whether they are happy. Surely, if they existed anywhere, they would not leave me in this doubt. But perhaps,” she went on, “it is because I am not worthy of this favour. Perhaps the pure and innocent souls of those children there”—she pointed to the cradle as she spoke—“are conscious of their presence, and enjoy a happiness that is denied to me.”’
Truly a wonderful passage to find embedded in a valuable and solid treatise on geology. Ramond never surpassed it though he laid himself out to do so, and—in his earlier works, at all events—never allowed geological considerations to stand in the way of sentiment.
It is sad to relate that, after having made himself known to all Europe as ‘the illustrious de Saussure,’ the pioneer of geological discovery fell upon evil days. But so it was. His health broke down; in 1794 he began to have paralytic strokes. His fortune—the greater part of it, at all events—was lost through the collapse of securities during the French Revolution. He was on the side that suffered most in the political disturbances which the Revolution engendered at Geneva.
In the midst of those disturbances, his father-in-law, Charles Bonnet, died, and de Saussure, himself almost to be reckoned a dying man, was called upon to pronounce his public eulogium. But the disturbances made it necessary for the ceremony to be postponed. A letter in which Madame de Saussure narrates the incident gives us a clear impression not only of the day, but also of the times of which the day was representative.
‘Yesterday,’ she writes, ‘I spent one of those days of emotion which do not affect us the less because we ought to be getting used to them. The people took up arms by order of the Committees of the Clubs. The gates were shut, the cannon rumbled along the streets, screaming women leant out of their windows to look. In the evening the town had that military air which you have sometimes seen in it—the streets full of armed citizens with flaming torches, patrols challenging the passers-by—and all this lasted till two or three in the morning; whereas to-day, everyone is at his shop, his café, or his office. And this tumultuous day had been selected for the celebration of the memory of the most peaceable of citizens—your uncle, Charles Bonnet.’
And so, amid such sorry scenes, the end approached. De Saussure sought relief and health in travel. He took the waters at Plombières, but without any good result, and died early in 1799, the great Cuvier pronouncing his eulogy before the Institut de France.