There is a legend about this ruin that haunts me. The last lord of the castle blindfolded his horse and leaped from that fearful height to certain and awful death. I have seen since I was there a picture by one of Switzerland’s first artists representing this scene. No danger of my ever forgetting it now. Then I sped along that rampageous youngster’s course for several hours, all aglow over the wonders it unrolled before me, till nightfall brought me to Ragatz, another fashionable watering-place. Its environs possess, in addition to all I have heretofore enumerated in the way of mountains, water and vale, what is said to be the most curious and unique feature in this remarkable little commonwealth: a gorge in which hot springs are inclosed. Having seen it, I would not have missed it “for anything,” as my French teacher used to say. Imagine an enormous fissure in a vast limestone ridge, a mountain; it might have been cloven there by Atlas in that forepast when such giants were no fiction. The depth must be from 150 to 200 feet; maybe more. Those awe-inspiring walls seem almost to meet; for overhead they swerve in many places toward each other, so as to shut out the light; in others they part to admit gleams of sunshine and blue sky. Far below, a glacier stream, the Tamina, is rushing, roaring, throwing up clouds of spray, and wearing away now, as it has been wearing away for lo! how many thousand years, that not too solid rock.
A wooden gallery runs along one side following the sinuosities of the rock, and you have a walk of a quarter of a mile through this strange, weird, yes, appalling “work of nature,” wrought by that foaming torrent, to the vaulted passage, “dark as Erebus,” which leads to the springs. Niagara is not grander or more imposing than this Plutonian gorge in its way. But, dear me, I will never get through if I try to tell you a tithe of what I have done and seen. For you see, there is the ascent of Rigi and ever so much else. Well, “the play will have to be cut.” I went up Rigi in the cars, saw a sublime sunrise, and walked down on the other side to Küssnacht! Believe me, I will never do the like again. It was a four-hours’ tramp, or rather slip and slide, stumble, stick, stagger. The way is always steep, and then it was slippery from the recent rains. I am just getting over the stiffness and soreness. No, I would not do it again for Rigi itself. But this Lucerne is just perfect loveliness, and I am getting “restored” rapidly.
And here I am ashamed of this long letter, afraid of another sheet, and have not said what I most wish to say. It is about your book. I am sure I shall like it, and hope you will stay at home and get it ready for the public, especially me. Yes, the title is good. I wish I was reading it this moment in print. I hope you have written to Miss B——. Were you at the wedding of Miss S——? Tell me about it. But I must stop. I do not want to—. Good-bye.
L. G. C.
Lucerne, July 26, 1883.
VIENNA.
SHALL make a beginning, but have no idea when I shall reach the finis. But I thank you beforehand not to say, “and the longest yet,” if it should be. All equipped and waiting for the opera hour in Vienna; a pale sunlight dropping from “a lambent sky;” windows wide open,