“I do not understand you.”
“If my other children grow up to doubt as you doubt, they may wander away on the mountains of error or the glaciers of vice, and fall into some awful gulph and be lost forever. And if I do not live to see my living children, I am as sure of meeting that one now in heaven, as if I saw him here in the light of the setting sun.—Heinrich, have you a mother, my dear friend?”
“Yes, yes,” he cried, “and her faith is the same as yours.”
I had seen his eyes filling, and had felt my own lips quivering as I spoke, but now he burst into tears and fell on my breast. He kissed my lips, and my cheeks, and my forehead, and the hot tears rained on my face, and mingled with my own. “O teach me the way to feel and believe,” he said at last, as he clung to me like a frightened child, and clasped me convulsively to his heart. I held him long and tenderly, and felt for him somewhat, I hope, as Jesus did for the young man who came to him with a similar inquiry. I loved him, and longed to lead him to the light of day.
CHAPTER VI.
GLACIERS OF THE AAR.
My new Friend—a Wonderful Youth—Hospice of the Grimsel—the Valley—a comfortable Day—Glaciers of the Aar—a Gloomy Vale—Climbing a Hill—View of the Glacier—Theory of its Formation—Caverns in the Ice—Incidents of Men falling in—My Leap and Fall—an Artist Lost—Return.
Heinrich proved to be a wonderful youth. He had a warm heart, and his intellect was cultivated to a degree not parallelled in my acquaintance among young men. He was just one and twenty years of age, and had not completed the usual course of collegiate education. But there was no author in the Latin or Greek languages, poet, philosopher or historian, whose works I have ever heard of, which were not familiar to him, as the English Classics are to well read men in England or America. He discoursed readily of the style, the dialect, the shade of sentiment on any disputed point; he cited passages and drew illustrations from the pages of ancient literature which seemed to him like household words: and one of our amusements when crossing the Alps was to discuss the difference in Greek or Latin words which are usually regarded as synonymes. But classical learning was the least and lowest attainment of this accomplished youth. The whole range of Natural Sciences had been pursued with a zeal that might be called a passion. Botany and Mineralogy were child’s play to him: and Chemistry had been a favorite study evidently, for its principles often came up in our rambling discourse, and he was master of it as if he had been a teacher of the science for years. Geology was a hobby of his, and he thrust it upon me often when I wished he would let me alone, or discourse of something else. And yet when I have said all this I have not mentioned the department in which he was most at home, where his soul revelled in profound enjoyment, and in which he was resolved to spend his life. Metaphysics was his favorite pursuit. His analytical mind was always on the track of investigation, challenging a reason for everything, questioning the truth of every proposition, and never resting till his reason had subjected it to the most exhausting process. Yet in the midst of these studies including many departments to which I have not referred, as the exact sciences, he had polished this fine intellect by the widest course of polite literature, perusing in the German translations, all the old masters of the English tongue, admiring Shakespeare and Milton, quoting from them as a scholar would from Sophocles or Homer, and surprising me by reference to English authors, whose works I had not supposed were translated into the German language. Of course the poets and philosophers of his father-land were his pride and love. Often he would speak of them in terms of endearment, as if they were his personal friends; though of all beings, present or past, in heaven or out of it, I think he loved Plato most. This boy was just out of his teens, a student still, and modest as he was learned; burning to learn more; asking questions till it was tiresome to hear them; and never dreaming that he knew more than others. He was the most learned young man I ever saw. And few old men know half as much. He now joined my party, leaving his own altogether, and resolved to follow me to the ends of the earth.
We are now in the Vale of the Grimsel. In the bottom of the Valley, by the side of a lake forever dark with the shadows of overhanging hills, is the Hospice, a name that here combines the idea of hospital and hotel—its design being to furnish lodging and entertainment to travellers, whether they are able to pay for the hospitality or not. Last winter the landlord of the Grimsel having insured his house, set fire to it, to get the money, and now is in prison for twenty years as the penalty of his crime. In years past there have been terrible avalanches here, and once the house was crushed by the “thunderbolts of snow.” Often it is surrounded by snow drifts twenty or thirty feet high, yet some one lodges here all winter to keep up a fire and furnish shelter to the benighted traveller. It is strange that these lonely paths should be traversed at all in the depth of winter. But there is no other mode of communication between the valleys, than along these defiles, and the traffic among the people of one canton with another is carried on, and the intercourse of families is kept up at the risk of life here as in other countries. If one has a good home, it were better to stay in it than to cross the Grimsel in the winter.
A mixed multitude were under the roof of the Hospice. The building is yet unfinished; and it must have required prodigious exertions to get it so far under way, since the fire, as to make it habitable for travellers this season. Every stick of timber must be brought up by hand from the plain some miles below. The walls are of stone, about three feet thick, and rough enough. No attempt to smooth a wall, or paint a board appears on the edifice, and the rude bedsteads, benches and chairs suggest to the luxurious traveller how few of the good things he has at home are actually essential to his comfort. The house has about forty beds, but these were far from being sufficient to give each weary pilgrim one. Many were obliged to choose the softest boards in the dining room floor, and sleep on them. Yet in that company of sixty who crowded around the supper table were many of the learned, and titled, and beautiful, and wealthy of many lands; meeting socially in a dreary valley, on a journey of pleasure, and refreshing each other with the “feast of reason and the flow of soul.” Reserve was banished, and the hour freely given to good cheer, in which all strove to forget the toils of the day, in the pleasures of the evening, and the repose of a peaceful night.