X Chmnois-Hunting 5 1 3 



It seemed profanity to whisper ; and yet there was 

 Joseph, after a glance round and a short ' schdne 

 panorama ! ' whistling and fishing up the eatables and 

 drinkables fronn the bottom of his wallet as coolly 

 as if he was seated in his own smoky, half-lighted 

 cabin. He had been born in it, and was used to it, 

 I doubt whether I myself felt the grandeur of the 

 scene as much then as I have often done since, on 

 recalling it bit by bit to my recollection. The 

 really grand gives one at first a sort of painful 

 feeling that is indescribable. One cannot tliink ; 

 one only feels with that strange, undescribed sense 

 that strives, almost to heart-breaking, to bring itself 

 forth, and yet stays voiceless. 



We sat long, drinking in alternate draughts of 

 sublimity and slibowitz (as Joseph called the brandy), 

 till the Berg-geist kindly put an end to our ecstasies 

 by drawing a dark gray veil over the whole picture, 

 and pelting us with snow-flakes as a gentle hint to 

 be off and leave him to his cogitations. It began, 

 indeed, to snow in real earnest, and the weather 

 looked mighty dark and unpromising ; so we 

 scrambled hastily down the way we came, and 

 leaning well back on our alpenstocks, with our feet 

 stretched out before us, shot down the long sheet of 

 snow at a considerably quicker rate than we had 

 ascended ; and gliding scornfully past our columnar 

 friends, whose fantastic capitals had given us so much 

 trouble in the morning, we reached, with many a tumble 

 and much laughter, the stony ravine at its foot. 



2 L 



