"MY DEAREST FATHER,
"I am sitting on a gray stone in the middle of the glacier, waiting till the fog goes away. I believe I may wait. I write this line in my pocket-book to thank my mother for hers which I did not acknowledge last night. I am glad and sorry that she depends so much on my letters for her comfort. I am sending them now every day by the people who go down, for the diligence is stopped. You may run the chance of missing one or two therefore. I am quite well, and very comfortable—sitting on Joseph's knapsack laid on the stone. The fog is about as thick as that of London in November,—only white; and I see nothing near me but fields of dampish snow with black stones in it."
And then:
"MONTANVERT, August 22.
"I cannot say that on the whole the aiguilles have treated me well. I went up Saturday, Monday and Tuesday to their feet, and never obtained audience until to-day, and then they retired at twelve o'clock; but I have got a most valuable memorandum."
The parental view was put thus:
GENEVA, Monday, August 20, 1849.
"MY DEAREST JOHN,
"I do not know if you have got all my letters, fully explaining to you in what way the want of a single letter, on two occasions, did so much mischief—made such havoc in our peace. I think my last Thursday's letter entered on it. We are grateful for many letters—that have come. It was merely the accident of the moment when first by illness and then by precipices we were most anxious—being exactly the moment the letters took it into their heads to be not forthcoming. Not writing so often would only keep us more in the dark, with little less anxiety. Please say if you get a letter every day...."
Space can hardly be afforded for more than samples of this voluminous correspondence, or interesting quotations might be given about the "ghost-hunt yesterday and a crystal-hunt to-day," and life at the Montanvert, until at last (August 28):