startles and almost shocks us with the same sense of unearthly wonder as when for the first time in childhood the green baize curtain rolls up suddenly, and we gaze, with child's eyes, straight into the green mysteries of fairyland.
PILATUS ABOVE A SEA OF CLOUDS.
This first view, then, of the Vierwaldstättersee from the quays at Lucerne—far more than the first view of Lake Leman from the bridges of Geneva, or of Zurich from the quays of Zurich city—is dramatic in its complete and abrupt transformation, in its turning upside-down, and twisting inside-out, of all our previous conceptions of our commonplace, workaday world! The thing in a way is sensational, but sensational within the modesty of nature, and certainly to be enjoyed at least once in a lifetime, and especially if one happen to be young. If one happen to be older, or has seen the thing before, there is reason good enough to quit the train at Sursee, fifteen miles short of Lucerne, and approach Lucerne thence gradually, on bicycle or foot, by a zig-zag route of gradual introduction that is pursued, I suppose, by hardly anyone, and certainly not by Cook's tourist or Polytechnic student, each of whom has borrowed Atalanta's heels. Sursee itself, though entered by a medieval gateway, has little else to show in the way of particular antiquities. Yet the town itself, in every lane and corner of it, is antiquity itself, and altogether delightful in possession of local colour. This is German Switzerland, and proclaims its Teutonic stamp at every turn: the very gate by which we enter still bears above its arch the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. From Sursee inquire your way by the long ascent to the little upland town of Beromünster, where a college for secular canons was founded in the eleventh century. In Murray's invaluable handbook, worth half a dozen Baedekers, it is stated that "the church is eleventh to twelfth century, though much altered in the eighteenth century." The description is misleading, for, though the core may be really old, it is overlaid with later classical work till most traces of medievalism are entirely obscured—the very piers of the nave arcades are monolithic shafts of pink marble. None the less it is well worth visiting, for the sake of its grand Renaissance choir stalls and sunny, silent cloister. Hence to Sempach you may find a pleasant, unfenced lane, through the open pastures and apple-orchards, that falls by easy gradients along the north shore of the placid lake. Sempach is one of the sacred political sites of Switzerland—like Morat, like Morgarten—for here was fought, in 1386, one of those great battles that vindicated her freedom, and linked her name for ever with England's as a synonym for liberty:
"Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains."
The legend of Arnold von Winkelried, like that of Tell, has been questioned of recent years; it first appears, more than half a century after the supposed event, "in an interpolated notice in a Zurich chronicle (1438 or later), and a popular song of the latter half of the same century." True or false it will bear retelling, and indicates correctly enough the national spirit, even though it err in narration of historical fact. After all, most children know it by heart: how Arnold von Winkelried, finding it impossible by any other means to break the serried Austrian ranks,
"For victory shaped an open space,
By gath'ring, with a wide embrace,
Into his single heart, a sheaf
Of fatal Austrian spears."
Arnold is said to have come from Stans, where his statue still stands in the market-place; where his armour is still preserved in the Rathhaus; and where it is certain at least that a family of the same name was resident in the neighbourhood at the time of the great fight. His house is also shown on the skirts of the little town—or, more correctly, may be found by those who seek it with much diligence; for though the victory itself is not forgotten in Switzerland, and was, indeed, celebrated with much pomp at its quincentenary in 1886, it is hard to get lucid instructions in Stans itself as to the whereabouts of the national hero's birthplace, or even to authenticate its continued existence. I found it at last—a little old farm in the suburb, "of which one portion, including a low archway with groined entrance and low pillars, may be as old as the time of Winkelried."
Sempach itself, like Sursee, is a picturesque old town, with another quaint old gateway. The lake, though five miles long, is quite outside the mountains, though the splintered crags of Pilatus give a distant hint of Alpine splendour. The remaining nine miles or so to Lucerne are perhaps a trifle dull, and the entrance to the city is through the usual straggling suburb—out of all reasonable proportion to the place itself—that conducts us too frequently to a town in Switzerland.