Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

There are some of my fellow-travellers, by the by, who, if they had been made before the hills, would never have been much wiser. All through these solemn passages and gorges, they are discussing hotels, champagne, wine, and cigars. I presume they would do the same thing at the gates of the Celestial City, if they should accidentally find themselves there. It is one of the dark providences that multitudes of this calibre of mind find leisure and means to come among these scenes, while many to whom they would be an inspiration, in whose souls they would unseal ceaseless fountains of beauty, are forever excluded by poverty and care.

At noon we stopped at Sallenches, famous for two things; first, as the spot where people get dinner, and second, where they take the char, a carriage used when the road is too steep for the diligence. Here S., who had been feeling ill all the morning, became too unwell to proceed, so that we had to lie by an hour or two, and did not go on with the caravan. I sat down at the room window to study and sketch a mountain that rose exactly opposite. I thought to myself, "Now, would it be possible to give to one that had not seen it an idea of how this looks?" Let me try if words can paint it. Right above the fiat roof of the houses on the opposite side of the street rose this immense mountain wall. The lower tier seemed to be a turbulent swell of pasture land, rolling into every imaginable shape; green billows and dells, rising higher and higher in the air as you looked upward, dyed here and there in bright yellow streaks, by the wild crocus, and spotted over with cattle. Dark clumps and belts of pine now and then rise up among them; and scattered here and there in the heights, among green hollows, were cottages, that looked about as big as hickory nuts.

Above all this region was still another, of black pines and crags; the pines going up, and up, and up, till they looked no larger than pin feathers; and surmounting all, straight, castellated turrets of rock, looking out of swathing bands of cloud. A narrow, dazzling line of snow crowned the summit.

You see before you three distinct regions—of pasture, of pine, of bare, eternal sterility. On inquiring the name of the mountain, I was told that it was the "Aiguille" something, I forget what; but I discovered that almost all the peaks in this region of the Alps are called Aiguille, (needle,) I suppose from the straight, sharp points that rise at their summits.

There is a bridge here in Sallenches, from which, in clear weather, one of the best views of Mont Blanc can be obtained—so they tell us. To-day it is as much behind the veil, and as absolutely a matter of faith as heaven itself. Looking in that direction you could not believe that there ever had been, or could be, a mountain there. The concealing clouds look as gray, as cool, and as absolutely unconscious of any world of glory behind them as our dull, cold, every-day life does of a heaven, which is, perhaps, equally near us. As we were passing the bridge, however, a gust of icy wind swept down the course of the river, whose chilly breath spoke of glaciers and avalanches.

Our driver was one of those merry souls, to be found the world over, whose hearts yearn after talk; and when I volunteered to share the outside seat with him, that I might see better, he inquired anxiously if "mademoiselle understood French," that he might have the pleasure of enlightening her on the localities. Of course mademoiselle could do no less than be exceedingly grateful, since a peasant on his own ground is generally better informed than a philosopher from elsewhere.

Our path lay along the banks of the Arve, a raving, brawling, turbulent stream of muddy water. A wide belt of drifted, pebbly land, on either side of it, showed that at times the torrent had a much wider sweep than at present.

In fact, my guide informed me that the Arve, like most other mountain streams, had many troublesome and inconvenient personal habits, such as rising up all of a sudden, some night, and whisking off houses, cattle, pine trees; in short, getting up sailing parties in such a promiscuous manner that it is neither safe nor agreeable to live in his neighborhood. He showed me, from time to time, the traces of such Kuhleborn pranks.

We were now descending rapidly through the valley of Chamouni, by a winding road, the scenery becoming every moment more and more impressive. The path was so steep and so stony that our guide was well enough contented to have us walk. I was glad to walk on alone; for the scenery was so wonderful that human sympathy and communion seemed to be out of the question. The effect of such scenery to our generally sleeping and drowsy souls, bound with the double chain of earthliness and sin, is like the electric touch of the angel on Peter, bound and sleeping. They make us realize that we were not only made to commune with God, but also what a God he is with whom we may commune. We talk of poetry, we talk of painting, we go to the ends of the earth to see the artists and great men of this world; but what a poet, what an artist is God! Truly said Michael Angelo, "The true painting is only a copy of the divine perfections—a shadow of his pencil."

I was sitting on a mossy trunk of an old pine, looking up admiringly on the wonderful heights around me—crystal peaks sparkling over dark pine trees—shadowy, airy distances of mountain heights, rising crystalline amid many-colored masses of cloud; while, looking out over my head from green hollows, I saw the small cottages, so tiny, in their airy distance, that they seemed scarcely bigger than a squirrel's nut, which he might have dropped in his passage. A pretty Savoyard girl, I should think about fifteen years old, came up to me.