One night near Obstalden, a terrible storm of thunder and lightning was leaping back and forth across the lake, and at moments every peak was illuminated. In the darkness the lake was at an immeasurable depth below us; a clap of thunder, a flash, and it seemed for an instant a bright mirror shining in the air. We had been coming down the path from Amden and had lost our way in the darkness, and when the lightning flashed, it was so vivid, we were afraid to go ahead. We took shelter under a projecting rock there on the mountain side, and watched the spectacle. All the artificial things that man ever dreamed of would be nothing in the presence of these elements, battling with each other over the mountain tops.
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder. Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.
It was nearly morning before we could find the way down the rocky path to our little inn; but anyway we had seen a storm in the higher Alps.
A pretty little incident occurred here one day with our children. My wife, Helen and Lawrence were at dinner out under the castanien trees on the terrace above the lake. Two strangers got out of a rickety old chaise that had brought them up the mountain. “May we eat dinner here with you under the trees?” said the eldest of the strangers, a kindly faced, white-haired gentleman, to the children. Extra plates were brought by the landlady of the inn, and the children and the strangers had a good time together.
“And your name is Helen,” said her new friend at parting. “Yes, and what is your name?” answered the little girl. “Just Albert, please,” said the man, smiling. “Good-bye, little folks,” he called as he climbed into his one-horse wagon. “Good-bye, Mr. Albert,” called out the little girl, waving her hands, “Aufwiedersehen.”
The Frau Minster, Zurich.
In a few moments a rider hurrying up from the lake told the landlady in bated breath that it was Albert, King of Saxony, she had been entertaining. He was traveling in the Alps incognito. “Good gracious,” cried the landlady, “had I known that, what a different charge I might have made.”
September 25, 1876.--We are in the middle of the Atlantic. On the 16th, we left London on the Anglia. Mr. Benjamin, the marine artist (afterward Minister to Persia), is among the passengers. He made sea sketches, all the way. Kate Sherwood Bonner, a Southern literary woman, who put staid old Boston in an uproar last year by stirring up some of the effete clubs of culture that did not cultivate, is also on board. She is bright and beautiful, with her golden hair, and has the fairest white hands imaginable. A strange incident made us acquainted. She mentioned her home in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and in a moment I knew that once in the war times I was a sick soldier in that very house. I saw death scenes in its elegant chambers, in her own boudoir, of friend and foe, too horrible to relate.
The weather is perfect. We sail to Canada. There is not a sick soul on board. Everybody knows everybody, and there are concerts and recitations and fun in the cabin every night. All the day we play games on the deck. Nobody wants this journey to come to an end.