Read Ebook: A month in Switzerland by Zincke F Barham Foster Barham

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 594 lines and 74068 words, and 12 pages

A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND

TO ZERMATT

What blessings Thy free bounty gives Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives: T' enjoy is to obey.--POPE.

We breakfasted at Lausanne, and dined and slept at Vevey. We had thus got to Switzerland, practically, in no time at all, and without any fatigue, for we had been on the way only at night, and both nights we had managed to get sleep enough.

We had come, as it were, on the magical bit of carpet of Eastern imagination; which must have been meant for a foreshadowing of that great magician, the locomotive, suggested by a yearning for the annihilation of long journeys, without roads, and with no conveyance better than a camel: though a friend of mine, whose fancy ranges freely and widely through things in heaven above, and on earth below, tells me he believes that that bit of carpet was a dim reminiscence of a very advanced state of things in an old by-gone world, out of some fragments of the wreck of which the existing order of things has slowly grown.

My last hours in London had been spent in dining at the club, with a friend, who is one of our greatest authorities on sanitary, educational, and social questions; and our talk had been on such subjects. It is well to pass as directly as possible, and without tarrying by the way, from London and Paris, where man, his works, and interests are everything, to Switzerland, where nature is so impressive. The completeness of the contrast heightens the interest felt in each.

Those who give themselves the trouble, and do you the honour, of looking through what you have written, become, in some degree, entitled to know all about the matter. They are in a sort partners in the concern. I will therefore at once communicate to all the members of the firm that I did not go on this little expedition because I felt any of that desire for change by which, in these days, all the world appears to be driven in Jehu-fashion. I have never felt any necessity for this modern nostrum. I do not find that either body or mind wears out because I remain in one place more than twelve months together. I am a great admirer of White of Selborne; and I hope our present Lord Chancellor's new title will lead many people to ask what Selborne is famous for; which perhaps may be the means of bringing more of us to become acquainted with a book which gives so charming a picture of a most charming mind that it may be read with most soothing delight a score of times in one's life ; and which teaches for these days the very useful lesson of how much there is to observe, and interest, and to educate a mind, and to give employment to it, for a whole life, within the boundaries of one's own parish, provided only it be a rural one.

It is true that I have been in every county of England, and in most counties of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and some general acquaintance with his own country--which is undoubtedly the most interesting country in the world--ought to an Englishman, if only for the purpose of subsequent comparison, to be the first acquisition of travel; and also that I have made some long journeys beyond the four seas, having set foot on each of the four continents; but I can hardly tell how on any one occasion it happened that I went. It certainly never was from any wish for change. It was only from taking things as they came. And so it was with this little excursion. It was not in the least my idea, nor was it at all of my planning. My wife wished to spend the winter in a more genial climate than that of East Anglia; and it was thought desirable that her little boy should go to a Swiss school, for, at all events, a part of the year, until he should be old enough for an English public school. And so, having been invited to go, I went. My part of the business, with the single exception of a little episode we shall come to in its place, was to be ready to start and to stop when required, and to eat what was set before me; in short, to take the goods a present providence purveyed. I recollect a weather-beaten blue-jacket once telling me--on the roof of the York mail, so all that may be changed now--that the charm of a sailor's life was that he had only to do what he was told, and nothing at all to think about. Of this perhaps obsolete nautical kind of happiness, we housekeeping, business-bound landsmen cannot have much; but a month of such travel comes very near it. And if a man really does want change for the body, together with rest for the mind, here he has them both in perfection. What a delightful oasis would many find such a month in their ordinary lives of inadequately discharged, and too inadequately appreciated, responsibility! This little confidence will, perhaps, while we are starting, convey to the reader a sense of the unreserved and friendly terms on which, I hope, we shall travel together. I regret that, from the nature of the case, in these confidences all the reciprocity must be on one side.

Between Sierre and Visp there are a great many large mounds in the valley. The side of these mounds which looks up the valley is always rounded. The face which looks down the valley, is sometimes rocky and precipitous. This difference must be the effect of former glacier action, at a time when the whole valley, down to Geneva, was the bed of a glacier, which planed off and rounded only that side of the mound against which it moved and worked. Above Visp the land is very poor, consisting chiefly of cretaceous detrital matter. This is covered with a pine forest, a great part of which is composed of Scotch fir, the old ones being frequently decorated with tufts of mistletoe.

Geologists are now pretty well agreed that the lake of Geneva itself was excavated by this old glacier. Its power, at all events, was adequate to the task. It was 100 miles long, and near 4,000 feet in thickness at the head of the lake, as can now be seen by the striated markings it left on the overhanging mountains. It acted both as a rasp--its under side being set with teeth, formed of the rocks it had picked up on its way, or which had fallen into it through its crevasses; and also as a scoop, pushing before it all that it could thrust out of its way. And what could not such a tool rasp away and scoop out, at a point where its rasping and scooping were brought into play, as it slid along, thicker than Snowdon is high above the sea, and impelled by the pressure of the 100 miles of descending glacier behind, that then filled the whole broad valley up to and beyond Oberwald? It was wasting away as it approached the site of the modern city, where it must have quite come to an end; for the lake here shoals to nothing; there could, therefore, have, then, been no more rasping and scooping. At the head of the lake, where the glacier-tool was tilted into the position for rasping and scooping vigorously, the water, notwithstanding subsequent detrital depositions, is 900 feet deep.

At Visp my wife and the little boy got on horseback. Another horse was engaged for the baggage. I proceeded on foot. Our destination was Zermatt. We got underway at 2 P.M., and reached St. Niklaus at 5.45; about twelve miles of easy walking. The situation of this place is good, for the valley is here narrow, and the mountains, particularly on the western side, rise abruptly. The inn also is good. I note this from a sense of justice, deepened by a sense of gratitude; because here an effort, rare in Swiss hotels, has been made to exclude stenches from the house; the plan adopted being that of a kind of external Amy Robsart gallery. From Visp to St. Niklaus the road is passable only for horses.

After an early dinner at Zermatt, my wife and myself walked to the foot of the Gorner Glacier, to see the exit from it of the Visp. It issues from a most regularly arched aperture. This is the glacier that descends from the northern and western sides of Monte Rosa, the sides of the Breithorn, and one side of the mighty Matterhorn.

We found the hotels at Zermatt overcrowded. This is a great rendezvous for those who do peaks and passes. In the evening, particularly if it is cold enough for a fire, the social cigar brings many of them together in the smoking-room. Among these, at the time we were there, was the hero of the season. He is a strong, wiry man, full of quiet determination. He was then doing, so ran the talk of the hotel, a mountain a day, and each in a shorter time than it had ever been done in before. To-morrow he is to climb the Matterhorn in continuous ascent from this place, in which fashion I understand no one has yet attempted it.

THE RIFFEL--THE GORNER GRAT--SUNDAY--ZERMATT--SCHWARTZ SEE--MOUNTAINEERING

Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places, and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains; and thus take A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands.--BYRON.

After luncheon at the Riffel Hotel, we walked to the summit of the Gorner Grat. Here you have what is said to be the finest Alpine view in Europe. You are standing on a central eminence of rock in, as far as you can see, a surrounding world of ice and snow. On the left is the Cima di Jazi, which you are told commands a good view into Italy. Just before you, as you look across the glacier, which lies in a deep broad ravine at your feet, rise the jagged summits of Monte Rosa with, at this season, much of the black rock showing through their caps and robes of snow. Next the Lyskamm, somewhat in the background; then Castor and Pollux, immaculate snow without protruding rock; next the Breithorn, then the naked gneiss of the Matterhorn, a prince among peaks, too precipitous for snow to rest on in the late summer, looking like a Titanic Lycian tomb, such as you may see in the plates of 'Fellowes's Asia Minor,' placed on the top of a Titanic rectangular shaft of rock, five thousand feet high. Beyond, and completing the circle of the panorama, come the Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Rothhorn, the Weisshorn, over the valley of Zermatt, the Ober Rothhorn, and the Allaleinhorn, which brings your eye round again to the Cima di Jazi. What a scene! what grandeur for the eye! what forces and masses beneath for the thought! Here is the complement to Johnson's Charing Cross and the East Anglican turnip-field. Both pleasant sights in their respective classes, but not enough of all that this world has to show.

The little boy in the morning, during our ascent of the Riffel, had not been able, when he dismounted, to take a dozen steps without resting, as it appeared both from having outgrown his strength, and from some difficulty in breathing; but in the afternoon he skipped up to the top of the Gorner Grat, an hour and a half, and ran down again, just as if he had been bred on the mountains. It was difficult to keep him on the path, and from the edges of the precipices. He was at the top some minutes before any of us--we were a large party, for several parties had drawn together in the ascent. I heard a lady exclaim, 'There is the blue boy again' . 'He has beaten us all.' Never was there such a difference before between a morning and an afternoon.

As we descended the Gorner Grat a scud of snow passed by. The antithesis, common in the mountains, of gloom to sunshine, and of cold to warmth, was as complete as it was sudden. In a few minutes it was bright and warm again.

While we were at the hotel two American lads came up with their guides, and, after a rest of ten minutes, started for some pass. They had nothing on but coarse grey woollen pants, shirts of the same without collars, and boots very heavily nailed, or rather spiked. They were not more than seventeen years old, if so much.

The Riffelberg abounds in beautiful flowers; Gentians, Sedums, and Saxifrages reach almost to the top of the Gorner Grat. As might be expected at such a height, none rise, at their best, more than an inch or two above the ground. Gorgeous lilies and lovely roses would be as much out of keeping, as impossible, here. Such objects belong to the sensuous valley.

In the afternoon we walked back to Zermatt.

At the Schwartz See, we sent the horses to the foot of the Zmutt glacier, and began the ascent of the Hornli. In about a quarter of an hour we made the discovery that the blue boy was not man enough for the Hornli. I do not know, however, that we should have seen much more if we had gone to the top. We were close to the mighty Matterhorn, of which the Hornli is a buttress, and at our feet was the great Gorner glacier. These were the two great objects, and neither of them would have been seen so well had we been higher up. In returning we went by the way of the Zmutt glacier, a wild scene of Alpine desolation. There is much variety, and much that interests in this excursion; the cultivated valley, the junction of the Findelen and the Zmutt with the Visp, the wooded and then the naked mountain, the two great glaciers, the sedgy, flowery turf above the wood, the little black tarn, the bare rock of the Hornli, and, over all, the shaft of the Matterhorn. On the ridge above the Schwartz See we found a handsome blue pansy. Somewhere else I saw a yellow one of almost equal size.

Our guide, Victor Furrer, speaks English well. He wished to come to England for the seven winter months, thinking that he could take the place of under-gardener or stableman in a gentleman's house, or that of porter in a London hotel. Swiss education disposes the people to look for openings for advancing themselves in life beyond the narrow limits of their own country, and qualifies them for entering them.

The number of peak-climbers and pass-men assembled at Zermatt had increased during our short absence. Among the latter was an Irish judge, who did the St. Theodule. The law was in great force here, as was also the Church. The gentleman who had attempted the Matterhorn on Saturday, had been driven off by the weather. Though fine down here, it had been windy, wet, and frosty up there; and to such a degree that the face of this Alpine pier, for it is more of that than of a mountain, had become glazed with a film of ice. To-day he again attempted it from this place; and, the weather having been all that could be desired, he had gone, and climbed, and conquered. He found the air so calm on the summit that he had no occasion to protect the match with which he lighted his cigar; and, if he had had a candle, he would have left it lighted for the people at the Riffel to look at through their telescopes.

Notwithstanding the argument which may be founded on the graves of the four Englishmen in the God's acre of the Catholic church of Zermatt, one cannot but sympathise with the triumph, and applaud the pluck and endurance of our mountaineering countrymen. It must be satisfactory, very satisfactory indeed, for a man to find that he has such undeniable evidence that he is sound in wind and limb, and, too, with a heart and head to match; and that he can go anywhere and do anything, for which these by no means insignificant qualifications are indispensable. Mountaineering, in its motives, to a great extent resembles hunting, and, where there is a difference, the difference is, I think, to its advantage. It is more varied, more continuously exciting, more appreciated by those who do not participate in it, and, which is a great point, more entirely personal, for your horse does not share the credit with you. Shooting and fishing can bear no comparison with it. The pluck, endurance, and manliness it requires are not needed by them. It is also a great merit that it is within the reach of those who have not been born to hunting, fishing, and shooting, and will never have the means of paying for them. All these pursuits have each its own literature; and, as the general public appears to take most interest in that of the mountaineers, there is in this, as far as it goes, reason for supposing that the pursuit itself is of all of them the most rational and stirring.

Alpinism is also a natural and healthy protest in some, whose minds and bodies are young and vigorous, against the dull drawing-room routine of modern luxury; and in others against the equally dull desk-drudgery of semi-intellectual work, to which so many are tied down in this era of great cities. It is for a time a thorough escape from it. It is the best form of athleticism, which has its roots in the same causes; and it is, besides, a great deal which athleticism is not.

To a bystander there is something amusing in the quiet earnestness with which a peak-climber discusses the possibilities of an ascent he is contemplating. I was with two this afternoon who were about to attempt a mountain by a side on which it had not yet been scaled. The difficulty was what had hitherto been regarded as pretty much of a sheer precipice of some hundreds of feet. One of the two, however, had examined it carefully with his glass, and had come to think that there was roughness enough on its face for their purpose. The guides who were present were of the opposite opinion. That it had never been ascended on that side, but might perhaps prove not unascendable, was the attraction.

WALK BACK TO ST. NIKLAUS--AGRICULTURE--LIFE--RELIGION IN THE VALLEY

Whate'er men do, or wish, or fear; their griefs Distractions, joys.--JUVENAL.

We heard at Zermatt, and our guide told us that what we had heard was true, that the inhabitants of the valley pass some of their time in winter in playing at cards; the stake they play for being each other's prayers. Those who lose are bound by the rules of the game to go to the village church the following morning, and there pray for the souls of those who win. The priest also is supposed to have an advantage in this practice, as it gives him a larger congregation.

Such valleys as this of Zermatt have hitherto offered no opportunities to any portion of their inhabitants to emerge from a low condition of life. Little that could elevate or embellish life was within their reach. The only property has been land, and that, from the working of inevitable natural causes, has been divided into very small holdings. This has kept every family poor. Railways, which connect them with the world, the influx of travellers, in many places a better harvest than that of their fields, the advance of the rest of the world around them, and the capacity there is in their streams for moving machinery, may be now opening new careers to many. It is unreasonable to regret the advent of such a change, for it has more than a material side; it must bring with it, morally and intellectually, a higher and richer life. It implies expansion of mind, and moral growth--new fields of thought, and of duty.

But what said Jaques? Did he not moralise the spectacle?--SHAKESPEARE.

This chapter is to be a disquisition, after the manner of the philosophers, at all events, in its length, on peasant-proprietorship as now existing in the valley of Zermatt, or rather of the Visp; and on alternative systems. I do not invite anyone to read it, indeed, I at once announce its contents and its length, for the very purpose of inducing those who have no liking for disquisitions in general, or for disquisitions on such subjects, to skip it, and to proceed to the next chapter, where they will find the continuation of the narrative of our little excursion. My primary object in writing it was to ascertain, through the test of black and white, whether what I had been led to think upon these matters possessed sufficient coherence. I now, with the diffidence one must feel who ventures upon such ground, submit it to the judgment of those who take some interest in questions of this kind.

Bearing in mind that the subject is not a lively one, I will endeavour so to put what I have to say as that not much effort may be required to understand my meaning. From all effort, however, I cannot exempt the reader of the chapter, should it find one; for he will have, as he goes along, to determine for himself whether the facts alleged are the facts of the case, whether any material ones have been overlooked, and whether the inferences are drawn from the facts legitimately. He will not be in a position to allow what is presented to him to pass unquestioned; for he will be, himself, the counsel on the other side, as well as the jury.

Suppose, then, that the valley of the Visp contains 4,000 acres of irrigated meadow and of corn and garden ground; and that each family is composed of husband and wife, and of not quite four children. The average here in England is, I believe, four-and-a-half children to a marriage. Marriages, probably, take place at a later period of life in the valley than in this country, and, therefore, the average number of children there will be smaller. Let, then, the grandfathers and grandmothers who may be living, and the unmarried people there may be, bring up the average of each family to six souls.

We will now suppose that the husband will require a pound and a half of bread a day, that will be about nine bushels of wheat a-year; and that the wife and children will require each a pound a day; that will be about thirty bushels more, or thirty-nine bushels in all. From what I saw of the land in the valley I suppose that it will not produce more than twenty-six bushels an acre. Whether its produce be wheat, or rye, or barley, will make no difference to the argument. An acre and a half will then be necessary for the amount of bread-stuff that will be required for each family.

A family, we will take a well-to-do one, will also require three cows. Deducting the time the cows are on the common pasture on the mountains, each cow will require, for the rest of the year, two tons of hay. That may be the produce of one acre of their grassland, for some of it is cut three times a-year, but most of it only twice, the second and third crops being light.

They will not want for their own consumption the whole of the produce of the three cows. A surplus, however, of this produce is necessary, because it is from that that they will have the means for purchasing the shoes, the tools and implements, and whatever else they absolutely need, but cannot produce themselves. The cows will then require three acres.

But we will suppose that by the use of straw, and by other economies in the keep of their cows, they manage to reduce the quantity of hay that would otherwise be consumed. This will set free a little of their land for flax, hemp, haricots, cabbages, potatoes, &c. The three last will go some way towards lessening the quantity of bread-stuff they will require. We may, therefore, set down the breadth of cultivated land needed for the maintenance, according to their way of living, of our family of six souls, at four acres.

The 4,000 acres will thus maintain 1,000 families. This will give our valley a population of 6,000 souls.

Here, perhaps, the rigid economist would stop. It would be enough for him to have ascertained the laws which regulate, under observed circumstances, the production and the distribution of wealth. But as neither the writer nor the readers of these pages are rigid economists, we will, using these facts only as a starting point, proceed to ulterior considerations. The question, indeed, which most interests us is not one of pure economy, but one which, though dependent on economical conditions, is in itself moral and intellectual; and, therefore, we go on to ask what kind of life, what kind of men and women, does this state of things produce?

In such a population, the elements of life are so simple, so uniform, and so much on the surface, that there will be no difficulty in getting at the answers to our questions. There is not a single family that has the leisure needed for mental cultivation, or for any approximation to the embellishments of life. They each have just the amount of land which will enable them, with incessant labour, and much care and forethought, to keep themselves above absolute want. Subdivision might, possibly, in some cases be carried a little further, but things would then only become worse. Towards this there is always a tendency. But, for reasons we shall come to presently, there is no tendency at all in the other direction. Intellectual life, therefore, is impossible in the valley. The conditions requisite for it are completely absent.

Looking, then, at the property possessed by these Visp-side families in the same way, we can readily understand the moral effect it will have upon them. It will enforce what it teaches with irresistible power, because it will be acting on every member of the community in precisely the same way, throughout every day of the lives of all of them, generation after generation. Such teaching there is no possibility of withstanding. And what it teaches in this undeniable fashion,--undeniable because the virtues taught are to them the very conditions of existence,--are very far from being small moralities, for they are industry, prudence, patience, frugality, honesty.

Without industry their little plots of land could not support them; not the industry of the Irishman, in the days before the potato-famine, who set his potatoes in the spring, and took them up in the autumn, without finding much to do for the rest of the year; but an industry which must be exercised, sometimes under very adverse circumstances, throughout the whole twelve months. Every square yard of every part of their land represents so much hard labour, for nowhere has land been so hard to win. This fact is always before their eyes, and is in itself always a lesson to them. And this hard-won land, reminding them of the industry of those who were before them, has still, always, to be protected against the ravages of winter storms, and its irrigation kept in order. And every hard-won square yard must be turned to the best account. And all must labour in doing this. Their cows, too, require as much attention as their families. For them they must toil unremittingly in their short summer: they must follow them up into the mountains, and they must collect and store up for them the provender they will need in the long winter. And they must be industrious not only in the field, but equally in the house. They cannot afford to buy, and, therefore, everything, that can be, must be done, and made, at home. They cannot allow any portion of their time, or any capacity their land has for producing anything useful, to run to waste. There can be no fallows, of any kind, here.

With their long winters and scanty means, frugality, prudence, forethought, are all as necessary as industry. These are the indispensable conditions for eking out the consumption of the modest store of necessaries their life-long industry provides. If they were as wasteful, as careless, as improvident as our wages-supported poor, the ibex and chamois might soon return to the valley.

It is these necessity-imposed virtues which save the valley on the one hand from depopulation, and on the other from becoming overpeopled. Our labourers, and artisans, and operatives, who depend on wages, as soon as they have got wages enough to support a wife, marry. The general, almost the universal, rule with them is to marry young. The young men and maidens on Visp-side, not being dependent on wages, but on having a little bit of land, sufficient to support life, do not marry till they have come into possession of this little bit of land. Early marriages, therefore, are not the rule with them. The discipline of life, such as it is in the valley, has taught them--and a very valuable lesson it is--to bide their time.

Another virtue, which comes naturally to them, is honesty. The honesty of the valley appears to an Englishman unaccountable, Arcadian, fabulous. The ripe apples and the ripe plums hang over the road without a fence, for land is too precious for fences, and within reach of the hand of the passer-by; but no hand is reached out to touch them. Why is such forbearance unimaginable here? The reason is that, where only a few possess, the many not having the instincts of property, come to regard the property of the few as, to some extent, fair game for them. It is their only chance--their only hunting-ground. This is a way in which, without sanctioning a law which will act prejudicially to themselves, they can secure their share of the plums and apples nature provides. But, when all have property, each sees that the condition on which his own plums and apples will be respected is that he should himself respect the plums and apples of other people. This idea is at work in everybody's mind. The children take to the idea, and to the practice of it, as naturally as they did to their mother's milk. Honesty becomes an element of the general morality. It is in the air, which all must breathe.

Here then is a picture that is most charming. How cruelly hard has Nature been! Look at the cold, heartless mountains. Look upon their ice and storm-engendering heights. See how the little valley below lies at their mercy. Consider how, year by year, they fight against its being extorted from their dominion. Yet the feeble community in the valley, by their stout hearts and virtuous lives, continue to make it smile on the frowning mountains. How pleasing to the eye and to the thought, is the sight! And what enhances the charm it possesses is the sense of its thorough naturalness. There is nothing artificial about it; and so there is nothing that can to the people themselves suggest discontent. Their condition, in every particular, is the direct result of the unobstructed working of natural causes, such as they exist in man himself, and in environing circumstances. Whatever may be its drawbacks, or insufficiencies, they can in no way be traced to human legislation. How unwilling are we to contrast with this charming scene--but this is just what we have to do--the destitution, the squalor, and the vice, not of our great cities only, but even of our Visp-sides.

But, first, we will endeavour, by the light of the ideas we outside people have on these subjects, to complete our estimate of the worth of the state of things we are contemplating; of this oasis, the sight of which is so refreshing to those whose lot it is to be familiar with, and to dwell in, the hard wilderness of the world.

Its virtues are, doubtless, very pleasing to contemplate; but they are not of quite the highest order. The industry before us is very honourable. The mind dwells on the sight of it with satisfaction. But, as it only issues in the barest subsistence, the observation of this somewhat clouds our satisfaction. There are, too, higher forms of industry of which nothing can be known here--the industry of those who live laborious days, and scorn delights, from the desire to improve man's estate, to extort the secrets of nature for his benefit, to clear away obstacles which are hindering men from seeing the truth, to add to the intellectual wealth of the race, to smoothe the path of virtue, and make virtue itself appear more attractive. Such industry is more honourable, and more blessed both to him who labours and to those who participate in the fruits of his labour. And such prudence, frugality, and forethought as are practised in the valley are very honourable, and the mind dwells on the sight of them, too, with satisfaction. But he who belongs to the outside world will here again be disposed to repeat the observation just made. It is true that that man's understanding and heart must be out of harmony with the conditions of this life, and therefore repulsive to us, who does not gather up the fragments that nothing be lost, but when this is done only for self, and those who are to us as ourselves, though so done unavoidably through the necessity of the case, it is somewhat chilling and hardening. And it is not satisfactory that so much thought and care should be expended only upon the best use of the means of life--those means, too, being sadly restricted; for a higher application of these virtues would be to the best use of life itself. And so, again, with respect to their honesty. This is a virtue that is as rare as honourable; and the mind dwells on the sight of it with proportionate satisfaction. But its application to plums and apples is only its beginning. It has far loftier and more arduous, and more highly rewarded forms. It may be acted on under difficulties, and applied to matters, not dreamt of in the valley. It may rise into the form of social and political justice, in which form it prompts a man to consider the rights of others, especially of the most helpless and depressed, and even of the vicious, as well as his own; and not to use his own advantages and power in such a way as to hurt or hinder them: but, rather, to consider that it is due to their unhappy circumstances and weakness, that he should so use his power, and good fortune, as to contribute to the redress of the evils of their ill fortune.

Attractive, then, as is the contemplation of the moral life of the inhabitants of the valley, it is not in every respect satisfactory. A higher level may be attained. After all, it is the moral life rather of an ant-hill, or of a bee-hive, than of this rich and complex world to which we belong. And even if it were somewhat more elevated than it is, still there would remain some who would be unable to accept it, as worthy of being retained without prospect of change or improvement; and their reason would be, that man does not live by, or for, morality only. The worthy exercise of the intellectual powers is necessary for their idea of the complete man; and here everything of this kind is found to be sorely deficient. On the whole, then, in respect of each of the three ingredients of human well-being, a thoroughly equipped life, intellectual activity, and the highest form of virtue, we feel that something better,--with respect, indeed, to the two first something very much better,--is attainable, than what exists in the charming oasis before us.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet