Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/71

Rh , 14th July, 1831. have tried to persuade me that my imagination had exaggerated the vastness of the Swiss mountains, the unearthly forms of which hover among the recollections of my childhood, and that a snow mountain was not so imposing as I fancied. I was almost afraid to find myself disillusioned, but when I reached the Lake of Como, and saw the outposts of the Alps covered with cloud, with brilliant white snow and precipitous black peaks showing here and there, and their steep descent to the water, the trees and villages at their feet, then the mossy slopes and the cold barren rocks above furrowed with snowy clefts, the old feeling came back as at first, and I saw my memory had exaggerated nothing of it. I have just come back from visiting the gardens of the castle in a downpour of rain. I wanted to have it like Albano, and sent for a barber to bleed me; but he did not understand, and shaved me instead, which no doubt was a very excusable mistake. Boats are arriving at the island from all sides, as there is a