Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/57

 from the lower valley to a remote hamlet in a subsidiary glen. The day was gloomy, the light was fading, and the grey hill-ranges melted indistinguishably into the grey sky. The form of the narrow glen, of the level bottom in which a few cottages clustered near the smothered stream, of the sweeps of pine forests rising steeply to the steeper slopes of alp, and of the ranges of precipitous rock above was just indicated by a few broad sweeps of dim shadow distinct enough to suggest, whilst scarcely defining, the main features of the valley and its walls. Lights and shadows intermingled so faint and delicate that each seemed other; the ground was a form of twilight; and certainly it looked as though the children had no very cheerful prospect before them. But, luckily, the mental coloring bestowed by the childish mind upon familiar objects does not come from without nor depend upon the associations which are indissoluble for the older observer.

There is no want, indeed, of natural symbols of melancholy feeling, of impressive bits of embodied sadness, recalling in sentiment some of Bewick's little vignettes of storm-beaten crag and desolute churchyard. Any place out of season has a certain charm for my mind in its suggestions of dreamful indolence. But the Alpine melody deepens at times to pathos and even to passionate regret. The deserted aspect of these familiar regions is often delicious in its way, especially to jaded faculties. But it is needless to explain at length why some familiar spots should now be haunted, why silence should sometimes echo with a bitter pang the voices of the past, or the snow seem to be resting on the grave of dead happiness. The less said on such things the better; though the sentiment makes itself felt too emphatically to be quite ignored. The sadder strains blend more audibly with the music of the scenery as one passes upwards through grim gorges towards the central chain and the last throbs of animation begin to die away. In the calmest summer day the higher Aar valley is stern and savage enough. Of all congenial scenes for the brutalities of a battle-field, none could be more appropriate than the dark basin of the Grimsel, with nothing above but the bleakest of rock, and the most desolate of snow-fields, and the sullen lake below, equally ready to receive French or Austrian corpses. The winter aspect of the valley seems to vary between two poles. It can look ghastly as death when the middle air is thick with falling snow, just revealing at intervals the black bosses of smoothed cliff that glare fantastically downwards from apparently impassable heights, whilst below the great gash of the torrent-bed looks all the more savage from the cakes of thick ice on the boulders at the bottom. It presents an aspect which by comparison may be called gentle when the winter moonlight shows every swell in the continuous snowfields that have gagged the torrent and smoothed the ruggedness of the rocks. But the gorge is scarcely cheerful at the best of times, nor can one say that the hospice to which it leads is a lively place of residence for the winter. Buried almost to the eaves in snow, it looks like an eccentric grey rock with green shutters. A couple of servants spend their time in the kitchen with a dog or two for company, and have the consolations of literature in the shape of a well-thumbed almanac. Doubtless its assurance that time does not actually stand still must often be welcome. The little dribble of commerce, which never quite ceases, is represented by a few peasants, who may occasionally be weatherbound long enough to make serious inroads on the dry bread and frozen ham. Pigs, for some unknown reason, seem to be the chief article of exchange, and they squeal emphatic disapproval of their enforced journey. At such a point one is hanging on to the extremest verge of civilization. It is the last outpost held by man in the dreary regions of frost. One must generally reach it by floundering knee-deep, with an occasional plunge into deeper drifts through hours of severe labor. Here one has got almost to the last term. The dream is almost a nightmare. One's soul is sinking into that sleep

There is but a fragile link between ourself and the outer world. Taking a plunge into deep water, the diver has sometimes an uncomfortable feeling, as though an insuperable distance intervened between himself and the surface. Here one is engulphed in abysses of wintry silence. One is overwhelmed and drenched with the sense of mountain solitude. And yet it is desirable to pass yet further, and to feel that this flicker of life, feeble as it may be, may yet be a place of refuge as the one remaining bond between yourself and society. One is but playing at danger; but for the moment one can sympathize with the Arctic adventurer 