Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/91

Rh on every side flashing torrents fall like dust into the valley; one sees the snow mountains and glaciers quite near through the woods of pine, oak, and maple, and the wet meadows are strewn with innumerable bright flowers. On one side the Lutschine was hurling down the boulders one over another. As my guide said, it had brought down rocks “bigger than a stove.” But it is beautiful beyond everything. Unfortunately, we could not get up to the Smadribach, because all the bridges and pathways were destroyed. Still I shall never forget that walk. I made an attempt at a sketch of the Mönch, but what use is one’s little pencil? I know Hegel says that every human thought is something more sublime than the whole of nature, but here that strikes me as hardly modest. It is a fine idea, but a confounded paradox. For once I will be on the side of the whole of nature, which, indeed, is likely to be the safe side.

You know the position of the inn here, or if you have forgotten take my old Swiss sketch-book, where I have drawn it from every point of view, with the footpath in front, and which still makes me laugh privately. I am looking out of the self-same window now, getting a peep at the dark outlines of the mountains, for it is late in the evening, a quarter to eight, in fact. And I have an idea which is higher than the whole of nature, namely, that I will go to bed. So good-night, my loves. . The 14th, evening.—It went hard to leave the Jungfrau behind, but what a day it has been for me!