6 "Nor I," replied Tony; "I've been working hard, taking a lesson from yonder old sailor in tar philosophy. Bill, my friend,' said I to him, define me happiness,' or words to that effect. A wet sheet and a flowing sea,' he replied; 'a wind that follows fast, and bends the gallant mast and breaks it occasionally,' or words to that effect. I don't think those ladies over there would agree with him, however. Then Bill began his yarn. From a comfortable and affectionate home he ran away to sea three times. The third time he wasn't fetched back. He has been shipwrecked more than once. On the last occasion he floated about on a spar for two days, and was picked up for dead. Since then he has had such bad rheumatism that he is only fit for light work. I asked him if he did not envy the lot of the well-to-do tinker, tailor, or apothecary, who live at home at comparative ease. He said 'No.' His summum bonum would astonish a social science congress, and reads rather like St. Paul's list of the sufferings he had undergone for the faith. I've put it all down for you in the quarry for your book." The arrival of the boat into port prevented Ichabod's retort, which would of course have been withering. Tony's malapertness was beginning to strike him as serious. But he felt in himself that he was the stronger soul, and would be master yet. They slept that night at Bâle, the city where cleanliness comes next to godliness, but next before, it is said. A sort of fièvre d'outre mer was upon Tony. The public gardens, houses, churches, everything that met his eye, seemed to him worth notice and interest; a weakness intensely annoying to his companion, who did his best to break him of it. It was easy to prove that the flowers in Hyde Park were finer by far than those potted oleanders and dwarf palms; that the shops in Bâle were full of rubbish compared to those in the Quadrant; that Swiss furniture and Swiss food were inferior to English in every respect. Tony, driven to bay, stuck to it that it was enough for them to be different to be delightful, and threatened to enter among his notes for Ichabod's book that Happiness equals variety." Perhaps this was why the next day he bore so well and so easily being crushed, suffocated, scorched, and starved during a tedious journey in a crowded railway car to Thun, scarcely feeling the discomfort and fatigue, and thinking to himself that now first he understood how St. Lawrence, under certain circumstances, might rather have enjoyed his gridiron than otherwise. Out of consideration for Ichabod and his views, he did not say so, and kept his pleasure in the scenery to himself as long as he possibly could. It was not till they had left the railway at Thun and were steaming across the lake, amid scenery that stands alone in its union of all that is majestic with all that is picturesque. that 66 Pray ask yourself first, Tony, what makes these phenomena so impressive," said Ichabod contemptuously. Simply their vastness. Their enormous bulk, and age, and the strength these imply, so unlike anything we can do ourselves, that's what their sublimity amounts to. It's a vulgar feeling, and has more to do with fear than with anything else. If awe and wonder can produce admiration in you, Tony, you know you may be æsthetically developed, but you are morally uncultivated." "Stop a bit," said Tony, "I have seen plenty more monster phenomena in my life. The Great Eastern, Midland Railway Station, big powder mills, a whale, an elephant; but, in spite of my awe and wonder, never a scrap of admiration of this kind could they produce in me, or anything like it." It is "Shall I tell you why? the Reign of Terror that holds good in these mountain regions that makes them supremely imposing. Quite natural. Here nature's butchers and despots, your torrents, avalanches, hurricanes and landslips, are daily perpetrating the most frightful crimes with the most callous indifference. Consistently with our moral principles we, looking on in fear, should look on in indignation." Tony, with the Jungfrau looking him full in the face, felt called upon to vindicate her character, and would not surrender. "How is it then," he returned, "that your Swiss peasant loves to live among these ruffian mountains, falls ill and pines away when he gets out of their reach? He and his home are entirely at their mercy, yet he prefers that danger to the safety of town. Good again for my notes. Summum bonum à la Suisse. Life in a filagree châlet, till a lake bursts, or a flood or a whirlwind, or an earthquake shall take a fancy to put you out of existence. Upon my word, Ichabod, my collection is becoming a strange one." They reached Interlachen that evening, and found the hotels quite empty. An early frost had frightened the pleasure seekers away, and threatened to bring the season to an untimely end. An Indian summer had now set in, but nobody was there to enjoy it. So much the better for Interlachen and her personal appearance. The rustic beauty had put off her tawdry finery, and showed herself, as of yore, in her infinitely more becoming stuff petticoat, bodice and cap. There seemed small likelihood of Tony's enthusiasm abating under the circumstances. And yet it was not in vain that Ichabod, as they strolled along the meadows by the lake of Brienz, while the roselight faded away like a smile from the face of the Jungfrau, kept whispering at his ear the old old litany, of sunsets and sunrises going on unchangeably, while we men come and go, and how our night when it has come is everlasting. Thoughts which filled Tony's impressionable nature with mental numbness and enervating melancholy. Thoughts which have their allurements notwithstanding, and which easily take possession of the spirit of man, in the mountains. The soul must have a strong wing to rise to the level of those scenes, a strong eye to read, a profound heart and head to understand their language aright. CHAPTER XIV. AFTER lingering a day or two in the neighbourhood they continued their journey, following the beaten track to Meyringen and onwards. They met few travellers by the way. The single incident of that morning was a passing encounter with an English traveller, a member of the Alpine Club, whose route lay with theirs for a short distance, and with whom, though he was a perfect stranger, they became friendly and communicative in a few minutes. "It is curious," observed Ichabod to Tony afterwards, "that the social instinct in man is always stronger in the mountains. It is hail fellow well met' with anything in the form of flesh and blood we meet." But the said social instinct did not prevent him from nearly quarrelling with this man and brother of his before they had been in each other's company many minutes. The gentleman was an audacious mountaineer, on his way to a certain pass, the difficulties of which scared off all but the most experienced climbers. Pressed by Tony he gave an account of his this year's achievements and one or two little unlooked-for incidents by which they had been varied. Crossing a glacier by himself he had slipped into a crevasse, and had to make his way out by cutting steps in the ice with his pocket knife; but of this adventure, however, he was by no means proud, as it bore witness to his own carelessness, which impressed him far more than his successful skill in the matter. You would not say so had you heard the poor devil' holding forth on the subject to me the other day, and the enthusiasm with which he spoke. His eyes positively glistened as he went through the perils he had escaped over again in relating them. Once he spent a whole day in a crevasse. Once, when overtaken by a snowstorm, he only saved himself from being frozen to death by scooping out a hollow in a drift-a kind of cell. He crept in there and so kept himself alive till he could proceed. Last year he lost two companions through the breaking of a rope. As for the chamois hunt, when he talks of that, his excitement is catching. Such intoxication sends that of the roulette table to limbo." "For utter unreason it certainly does beat that or anything else," retorted Ichabod, "seeing that no lasting advantage of any conceivable kind can be won by it." The Alpine Clubbist, nettled, hinted that a man who had probably never been off a bridle path in his life knew absolutely nothing of the subject he was talking about. Ichabod replied that if, as he had just said, this madness was catching, most scrupulously should he continue to keep out of its way. The war of words grew warmer, and it was fortunate that before long their paths separated, and they wished each other farewell, the peak-hunter expressing formal, polite hopes of meeting them perhaps on the pavement of Piccadilly in the course of next month. "Provided you don't succeed in breaking your neck in the interval," suggested Ichabod considerately. The tourist laughed and assured him that, with the exception of the little slip already alluded to, and a narrow shave of frostbite last week on the Matterhorn, and a short fright when benighted through the ignorance of a bungling guide, he had really run no risk worth mentioning this season. "It's positive insanity," said Ichabod, as he and Tony pursued their journey on foot, along the path that skirts the rocky banks of the Aar to Handeck and the Grimsel. "Here you have the rough peasant, who has never been out of his own wretched country, and the London man, who of all others, I should think, might call himself the citizen of the world, both under the same infatuation. Off they go, contentedly, to dangle by a rotten rope over a precipice, and to be alternately frost-bitten and sunstruck, then exhausted, lacerated, dashed to pieces at last." "Summum bonum à la montagnarde," rejoined Tony, "another current form of happiness' to add to my list." Towards evening they reached Handeck, that pleasant picturesque nook perched in the Alpine wilderness, two hours' distant from any human habitation. Tony was tired, and Ichabod wished to write letters; so, instead of pushing on to the Grimsel, they determined to stay the night in the quasi châletinn at Handeck. It was early still, and they walked out first into the little adjoining wood to look at the falls of the Aar. It is here that the protracted beauties of that river suddenly rise to a climax. The precipitancy with which the waterfall bursts on the view, the headlong swoop of its waters, and the wild scenery that incloses it, all give it a stamp of romance nothing can efface. "Now, then, Ichabod," began Tony, "please to describe the nature of the admiration I feel at the sight of this cataract." "That is quite easy. It springs chiefly from your sense of personal safety, whetted, of course, by the frail appearance of the wooden bridge we are standing upon, and contrasted with the smash and havoc going on below. Freedom from pain and danger becomes positive enjoyment in the sight of other, even inanimate, things under rough treatment, such as those waters torn and dashed about, and the rocks beaten and broken by destructive powers that cannot touch ourselves." "And the rainbow in the spray; gives me quite a singular pleasure." it "Yes, like а fly in amber, because you're not accustomed to see it there. The common admiration for the rainbow, however, I believe to be what they call a reflex feeling, a matter of associations, dating from the time when we were small boys and learnt to look upon it as the sign of fine weather and sunshine that was going to set us free from detested confinement indoors." And Ichabod, having taken the shine out of the waterfall and the rainbow, went off to write his letters at the inn. In his private asceticism he had for many years been proof against the influence of a beautiful view. Indeed, the charms of scenery, with those of the fine arts and love, he had learnt to class together and look on as effeminate weakness. People were beginning to master it, but it still did a great deal of harm to many a manly nature, blinding the eyes, paralysing the hands, and beguil ing the mind into wasting hours and hours over barren and unfruitful contemplations. Such as Tony's now. He and his character were in a critical stage, from which the most learned psychologist might have been puzzled to prophesy how he would emerge. So far, Ichabod's influence had done its perfect work. Tony, looking now into his own mind, found what seemed to him a dreary blank, swept free from all pleasant illusions. As unqualified a spirit of distaste for the world as even Ichabod could desire to see now filled their place. The Spanish castles of youthful optimism had not crumbled away without damaging their builder, who raised them to dwell in. Looking back, it seemed years, rather than a few months, since a time when he had beheld in the earth the Calm empire of a happy soul, and could believe that love Makes the reptile equal to the god, and that to be Good, great, and joyous, beautiful, and free, This is alone life, joy, empire, victory. He and his ideas had travelled far on since then, and found and taken up with that deformed creed dawning, that neither life, joy, empire, victory, or freedom are worth living for, that love dies as soon as it is born, and usually reposes on a quicksand, that virtue is something we can very well do without a creed that in certain minds must lead to certain black and fatal practical conclusions. That crashing waterfall underneath was extremely beautiful. But if the plank were to give way, or vertigo to come upon him, down he would be hurled, and the forces of lovely nature would break him to pieces, like a twig, in the most blind and reckless manner, and without an atom of remorse afterwards. Well, and might they not be in the right? Who would be the loser? Not he, if his present valuation of life were a true one. And he fell deeper and deeper into some rather morbid speculations. Was it merely regard for the feelings of his weak-minded and irrationalistic parents and sisters that held him back? Stronger and steadier heads than Tony's, playing with like firearms of thoughts, have lost their balance, and in one moment of mastering frenzy, mental hallucination, or fatal consistency with their dark creed, and when neither personal fear nor childish associations have stirred to stay them or call them back to life-thrown up their appointment here below. There are times when, as it has been said, with diabolical truth, moral suicide itself offers a resistless fascination.. To let go our hold on judgment, to look into and infinitely divide realities till we lose sight and perception of them as a whole this, nay, the strange half-sense of madness-has the treacherous charm of opium, and for the same reason-because it lulls present pain, brings apparent relief from what seemed so rooted, inexorable, unbearable. Tony in his meditations had already gone far along this most perilous track. Already it would have needed a strong power to recall him. It was a crisis when he could wish from his heart that fate would take the responsibility off his hands, that the rotten plank beneath him would give way and cut the Gordian knot of life for him at once and for ever. Then there was a demon in his mind to suggest that it was rank cowardice only that could make him shrink from doing so |