EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 325 



was very much affected. De Saussure was now left the only man 

 in the villa at Genthod. At the end of October an interesting 

 visitor presented himself there. Goethe, who was travelling with a 

 German prince on his way to Italy, arrived at Geneva, and at once 

 called on de Saussure to ask for advice on the possibility so late hi 

 the year of an Alpine tour. Encouraged to risk a visit to the 

 glaciers, he set out for Chamonix and the Mer de Glace, crossed 

 the Col de Balme to Martigny, and then, favoured by an excep- 

 tional season, ventured up the Rhone valley to the Furka and 

 St. Gotthard, arriving at the hospice on the latter on 15th 

 November. 



Goethe's letters on his Alpine tour are among the signs of the 

 arrival of a new phase in the attitude of travellers towards 

 mountain scenery. During the previous century their records 

 had been mostly topographical, matter-of-fact observations of 

 natural features, or accounts of the difficulties and incidents of 

 the road. It had been the fashion to look on nature with curious 

 rather than with artistic eyes. In de Saussure 's Voyages the 

 former point of view still predominates, though from time to 

 time he yields to more personal and romantic impressions. But 

 these are rather the exception than the rule. Too often he 

 neglects to make any attempt to bring before his readers' eyes 

 the distinctive features of the scenery he passes through. For 

 instance, we find in his pages no mention of two of the finest 

 landscapes in the Alps the glorious view of Mont Blanc from 

 the head of Val d'Aosta or that of the Jungfrau from the 

 Wengern Alp. The beauty of the Lake of Lucerne gets no 

 tribute from his pen. He seems to take pains to justify his 

 own confession that he has no natural talent or taste for fine 

 writing. It requires some very exceptional occasion to draw 

 from him the eloquence of his descriptions of the view from 

 the Crammont, or of his last sunset on the Col du Geant. 



In Goethe's case the poet's mind and pen dwell not only on 

 the permanent outline of the landscape before him, but on its 

 shifting aspects under the changes of cloud and sunshine, of dawn 

 and twilight. He sets himself down to compose a picture of 

 passing effects. Such are the descriptions of the first glimpse 

 of Mont Blanc seen in the gloaming on issuing from the defile 

 of Les Montets, and of the peaks and glaciers appearing 



