Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/141

Rh the heroes of freedom, and which, it is said, sprung up in their footsteps.

Nor has Dalecarlia, the cradle of the Swedish champion of freedom, any other monument of its epic poem than the whispering forest, than the little hills, or the cottage, which served the hero as his stage of action or his asylum. And this is enough. Monuments of stone would be injustice to the popular memory.

I gathered some lovely grass on Grutli meadow, and sunned myself in its beautiful scenery and its ancient memories. After which, we rowed back to Brunnen, where we amused ourselves by contemplating two large inartistic works, in fresco, which are to be seen at the landing-place. The one is to commemorate the Sworn-Confederacy, which took place here between the Three Forest Cantons, on the 17th Dec., 1315, and represents these under the form of three men; the other represents two combatants, one of whom falls in a most dangerous and extraordinary manner. Below are the words—“Switer conquers Swen, and founds Schwytz.”

I am told that the subject of the picture is a quarrel between two brothers, which occurred at the commencement of the Swedish colonization.

In the evening, my friend and I fell into conversation,—I know not rightly what led to it,—on the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, which several of the ministers of the Reformed Church still adhere to, to this day; but not Penchaud, who is too mild and too much enlightened. He observed, what a small space this doctrine occupies in the Holy