Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-08-30

1 think ought to know something about
mountains, having lived among them the bet
ter half of my life Not until was sixteen
years of age was out of sight of some of the
boldest scenery of the Appalachian range. 1
came to Switzerland determined to look criti-
cally Mt the Alps and to see if they had been
so much overdone by gushing tourists ns
some other European scenery-the Rhine, for
instance-but confess with humiliation that
the Alps far surpass any mountains of our
Eastern range, and that they arc the greatest
cumulatious of earth and rock | ever saw.
The management of the weather did not see fit
to lift the curtain OF cloud during my stay at
Geneva, so | missed view of Mont Blame.
but saw the Jangfrau. at Interlnken, which
is more than twice the height of Mount Wash
ington. and many other mountains that would
make the peaks of Otter " Virginia look
tame. But with all its wild, sublime grandeur
and sequestered beauty, Switzerland does not
leave pleasant impression, like the smiling
plains of Normandy. There is too much en-
phass the senses are strained and fatguod
Variety is spice. but one even prefers plata
tude to eternal hyperbole.
mature is here too pretcntous Her mein
Is too naughty One likes to be coaIed not compelled
20 The homage such beauty resents 4 withheld
She seems 10 be saviug too plainly, admire mel"
And answer, IVES, Madam, do, but you tire me-
Then again, we are accustomed to look at
nature in her relations to human life, and it is
not the high snowy peaks, castellated rocks
and foaming mountain torrent that suggest
plenty and content
C,,.;.. 1,n4 I
have seen in Europe. They are industrious,
and perhaps happy, but their faces and limbs
reflect the frown of the mountains and are
tragic with generations of desperate battles
for subsistence. They are very frugal peo-
pie. In economy they are inferior only to the
French, who are stingy, miserly, denying
themselves comforts and living in miserable
little chambers, all that they may make a daz-
zling appearance on the Boulevards and in the
cafes
Away up on the mountain side, on the edge
of precipices or under them, at an elevation
of five thousand or six thousand feet, may be
seen the Swiss chalets, or even villages, the
roofs weighted down with large stones to pre-
vent the hurricane from sweeping them away.
Here they have their little farms and gardens,
every inch of which have been made produc-
tive. On these extreme heights goats, sheep,
and a few cows, but no horses, are to be
found. The principal industry of Switzer-
land is no longer it would appear, in watch
making, wood carving. or the manufacture of
musical boxes but in hotel keeping. No part
of Europe is so tourist-haunted, and hotels
are to be found everywhere, and of every
class, from the little eXterorly unprepossess-
ing but interiorly clean and comfortable inn,
to the grand hotel with marble floor and
spike coat-taed waiter. l prefer the little
inns. At them you will get rs good room,
as clean n bed, and better table, at about
half the price charged by the more fashion
able houses though the price charged by the
fashionable houses is not large, not often
more than two dollars and n half per day. l
do not know but that those walters in white
cravats and black swallow-tailed coats may be
very agreeable to some people, but to me
they have a funereal and depressing effect.
Then. too, at the grand hotels they have too
much system; they have got it down too fine
know too accurately just how much is re-
| quired to keep soul and body together and
| Craze the frontier of starvation most too close.
| All of them feed on the theory that each
| man wants Just as much MS, and no more than,
| another The td6Le II hOte in Europe is very
| different from ours. There is a great flourish
of courses and plate, too much plate and too
| few victuals. | have often left the table hun
| CRY to finish of at restaurant. l do not re-
member ever to have left quite satisfied,
though their stereotyped menu of soup, fish,
| veal, chicken, green beans, fruit, desert, and
| coffee, each in separate course, with long in
| terval between, and administered hom1opath-
| ically, gives, for the moment deceitful sense
of fullness Apropos of this subject | must
| tell you that while in Paris | ordered horse
steak one morning for breakfast breakfast at
| hotels in Europe is not taJh d hate, and one
can order one kind of meat and eggs, and il
tasted so much like the peculiar soggy beef
steak We had been eating all the time that it
set me rejecting. The guests at the hotel
| most of whom are Americans did not have
stomach for my practical test, but were curl
GUS to know how it tasted and since l have
told them it tasted precisely like beefstoak
that staple has been at discount they order
mutton chops, in order that they may hay,
the evidence of the bone. q. A. 5.
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