*****
We hear much of the awful force of Swiss mountain torrents. The other day I saw what is ordinarily a brook suddenly rise and sweep thousands of tons of huge rocks on to farms in the valley. The debris of rock and granite was from three to ten feet deep for a mile. The force of these streams is simply tremendous beyond belief--the fall is so great; even the wide river Reuss falls 5,000 feet in thirty miles.
It is a constant wonder why people build homes and hamlets in the way of these awful torrents when their destruction some day is almost certain. However, it is on a par with their building villages on mountain crags and on almost unapproachable slopes when there is plenty of level land in the word.
*****
Yesterday Koller, the animal painter, asked us to take tea in his studio. Congressman Lacey and his wife went with us. Koller is pronounced, by the Swiss at least, to be the greatest animal painter living. He had a splendid harvest scene on the easel--storm coming up, peasants hurrying to get the hay on the wagon, the threatening sky, the uneasy horses, their tails and manes, like the dresses of the girls, blown aside with the wind. It seemed to me I never saw so much action in a picture. Koller was threatened with blindness not long ago, when the prices of his pictures went sky high. Agents were sent out of Germany to buy them up at whatever figure. His great painting of the St. Gothard diligence crossing the Alps is famous. Nothing finer in the way of galloping horses and mountain pass scenery can be imagined. His home and studio are on a little horn of land running out into the lake. He keeps a herd of his own cattle for painting, and every day these beautiful dumb helpers of his are seen in the shallow water of the lake. Mrs. Koller poured the tea for us. She looks like an artist’s wife. Koller is a big, full-bearded German-looking Swiss, seventy years old, who is beloved all over the little republic for his supreme art. Switzerland has four great names in art: Calame, Stückelberg, Böcklin, Koller.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
1884
START FOR ITALY--THE CHOLERA--TEN DAYS IN QUARANTINE ON LAKE MAGGIORE--A HEROIC KING--WE ARE PRESENTED TO QUEEN MARGARET--AMERICAN ARTISTS IN ROME--THE ROYAL BALLS--RECEPTIONS AND PARTIES--MEET MANY PEOPLE OF NOTE--THE HILLS OF ROME--MINISTER ASTOR AND HIS HOME--HUGH CONWAY--IBSEN--MARION CRAWFORD--ONE OF THE BONAPARTES--KEAT’S ROOM--THE CARDINALS--ISCHIA DESTROYED--CHRISTMAS IN ROME--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--HIS VIEWS OF ROME--CLEVELAND’S ELECTION--FRANZ LISZT AGAIN.
August 4.--Sunday evening I walked from Bocken to Zurich to take the train for my new post at Rome. Walked along the Albis hills above the lake, ten miles. It was a delightful summer evening and the view of mountains and lake seemed finer than ever before. I could not help stopping many times to turn round and drink in the glorious scene, possibly for the last time. It was the only time I ever shed tears on leaving a scene of beauty. Besides I was leaving Switzerland, where I had had fifteen happy years.