The Spell of Switzerland

by Nathan Haskell Dole

That suggestion brought on a pretty little quarrel, especially when I added that I should be perfectly content to stay right where I was, even if I never saw my trunk again. At any rate, I got in the last word, which was a triumph, though at the expense of my reputation for delicacy of feeling. For my niece pretended to be shocked too much to let fly a Parthian arrow. I declared—and I am sure I looked as if I meant it—that Lady Q. was too old for me anyway.

I afterwards showed my niece the copy of “Anne of Geierstein” and she outdid my memory by calling my attention to Scott’s description of Mount Pilatus. I had forgotten all about it, but wishing still to be disagreeable—for I could not possibly forget her unworthy attempt to marry me forthwith to a lady whom I had never seen but once in my life—I said: “We will keep it till we get there.”

“You may not get there,” she retorted.

I tore out the pages and put them into my pocket. Maybe I shall produce them when I arrive at Lucerne.

We had an excellent cup of coffee and by ten o’clock we were doubling the “cone” of the Dranse. This promontory offers one of the best illustrations of the generosity of a river in forming village sites. It is the generosity of a fluvial Robin Hood, who steals from the wealthy to confer benefactions on the poor. There is a closer likeness here than one sees at first. The Robin Hood type of robber, erratic, generous, picturesque, romantic, sympathetic, humourous, belongs to a medieval epoch; he would be unthinkable when civilization has levelled all differences. So the wild, fierce, brawling, unscrupulous river, taking from one region and handing its loot to another or throwing it away, is uncivilized compared to the river that has reached its plain, and has become slow and dignified.

We went near enough to the shore to see the castle of Ripaille, where Duke Victor Amédée of Savoy had his hermitage. No wonder he did not want to leave it for the burdens of a contested papal tiara. I would not object to settle down in such a retreat—provided I had a few friends to share it. In his day probably the Jura was much more beautiful, because their slopes were clad in splendid forests. It is a nature-tragedy that when mountains are once deforested either by the axe of man or by fire, the flesh of the range melts away and can never form again; only the uncompromising rock is left like mighty bones.

The lake must have been even more beautiful when the great forests of chestnuts and birches and beeches still existed, before there had come the endless monotonies of terraced vineyards; before the valleys with their native châlets were sophisticated into summer resorts with smug villas and huge hotels filled with staring strangers.

I liked the look of the old town of Thonon, and the name of the department in which it is situated and of which it used to be the capital suggested the delicate wines. One complains of monotonous vine-terraces, and they certainly are not effective when seen at a distance, but at close range, especially when the trellises are loaded with ripe grapes, they have a double charm. The grape cure attracts thousands of people to all the shores of the lake and to dozens of charming little towns of which one only hears by accident.

If I were certain of several incarnations I should like to spend one whole life on the borders of Lake Leman. Perhaps in the next reincarnation one may be able to be in two places at once. We have two eyes that blend impressions into one resultant. Why not be in two places at once, and after that in four, in sixteen, and so on, till one would be coterminous with the universe and know everything: if we have two eyes, some other insects have a thousand. The gracious lady, Madame Sévery, whose letters, written a century and more ago, filled me with the rather melancholy yearning—for it can never be fulfilled—for that delightful life which she led: a winter in Lausanne or Geneva; the spring in one of her country châteaux; the summer in another, the autumn in still another. The houses, full of luxurious furniture, always ready for occupancy; friends happening around to spend a week or a month or only a night. But when one family had so much thousands had not much of anything, though probably the peasants then were as happy as the working-people now who have tasted of the intoxicating “Fraternité” cup, perhaps poisonous when the third ingredient is left out—the cup, invented by Rousseau, and drunk to the full in the French Revolution.