OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 475 



PASSAGE OF THE MATTERHORN. 



Call not waste that barren cone 



Above the floral zone ; 



Where forests starve 



It is pure use. 



What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind 



Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse ? * 



The " oil of life " burnt very low with me in June, 

 1868. Driven from London by Dr. Bence Jones, I 

 reached the Giessbach Hotel on the Lake of Brientz 

 earh" in July. Xo pleasanter position could be found for 

 an invalid. My friend Hirst was with me, and we made 

 various little excursions in the neighbourhood. The 

 most pleasant of these was to the Hinterburger See, a 

 small and lonely lake high up among the hills, fringed 

 on one side by pines, and overshadowed on the other by 

 the massive limestone buttresses of the Hinterburg. It 

 is an exceedingly lovely spot, but rarely visited. The 

 Giessbach Hotel is an admirably organised establish- 

 ment. The table is served by well-brought-up Swiss 

 girls in Swiss costume, fresh, handsome, and modest, 

 who come there not as servants, but to learn the mys- 

 teries of housekeeping. And among her maidens moved 

 like a little queen the graceful daughter of the host; 

 noiseless, but effectual in her rule and governance.! I 

 went to the Giessbach with a prejudice against its arti- 

 ficial illumination. The crowd of spectators may suggest 

 the theatre, but the lighting up of the water is fine. 

 The colourless light pleased me best; it merely inten- 

 sified the contrast revealed by ordinary daylight be- 

 tween the white foam of the cascades and the black sur- 

 rounding pines. 



From the Giessbach we went to Thun, and thence 



* Emerson's poems. f All this is now changed. 



31 



