Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/82

68 and the one where I should best like to live when I am downright old. The people are so contented and look so healthy, and the country is the same. Coming from Italy, one is profoundly touched by the honesty that still exists in the world, by the happy faces here, and then by the absence of beggars and bad-tempered officials, such a wonderful contrast there is between one people and another. I thank God for making many things so beautiful, and may He give us all in Berlin and England and Chateau d’Oex a pleasant evening and a good night! , 7th August. Evening.—Outside there is terrible thunder and lightning, and heavy rain as well. In the mountains one learns to treat the weather with respect. I did not go on from here, for it would have been a pity to travel down the lovely Simmenthal beneath an umbrella. It was a grey day, but beautifully cool for walking in the forenoon. The valley about Saanen and the whole route is indescribably fresh and delightful. I can never see too much green; if I were to stare all my life long at a sloping meadow-land with a couple of reddish-brown houses, I should always find the same pleasure in it. And the road winds among such meadows all the way up and down along the streamlets.

At midday, I was at Zweisimmen in one of the monstrous Bernese houses where everything shines so; all order and cleanliness, all polished down