The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-08-14

| IdlTeE NlslOD. my loOih ~ ' ~
looked out upon it, and tired ant
sleepy as was, I drew lounge toth'
window and lay there for an hour an6
looked and listened, looked at thu
FURNISHED moon and the cleaning
snow and the silvery water, listened
to the FLASHING of the fountain and the
pleasant murmur of voices in the gar
den below, with all my sense:
steeped i'm an intoxication sweetel
surely than any wine could give.
~
1t was hard to get down to break.
fast the next morning, for there was
the long sweep of the mountains, some
snow-capped with fleecy clouds drift.
ing about their heads, some tree-cov-
cred with deep purple shadows, some
long slope of the brightest green,
and there was the lake, blue as rob-
ms egg, with white-winged boats
gliding hither and thither upon it.
But there was the town also, and it
must be seen, as matter of duty If
not of pleasure. In the matter of his
torical associations the most interest
ing fact about Lausanne is that it was
the home of Gibbon during the time
that he was writing his history of the
decline and Fall of the Roman EN-
pire." The hotel at which / stopped
is OH the site of the summer house i'm
which he wrote the last chapters
of the book, and the house in which
he lived is near by. John KEN
BILE the actor also lived here, ard died
and is buried here. And it was here,
I believe that Byron, detained cou-
pie of days by bad weather, wrote the
"Prisoner of Chillon." For the rest
Lausanne is very much jumbled up
town, with no features of special in
terest except an old cathedral where
John Calvin once had a somewhat ac-
rimonious controversy with some
Papist whom everybody has forgotten,
and in which quite a number of an
cient worthless are buried. The living
are usually of much more interest to
me than the dead, and so hurried
away from the cathedral and down 100
steps-by actual count-to the market
place. stayed there for an hour,
watching the people buy their dry
goods and clothing and shoes and laces
and vegetables and meats and cheeses
-Limburger and Swiss until you
couldn't remember you had ever smell
ed anything sweet-all from stocks
spread out upon the cobble stones in
the open square. Maybe I have low
and untutored tastes: but 1 would
leave musty old cathedral any time
TO watch two old women haggle over
the price of piece of yellow calico.
~
The ride from Lausanne almost the
entire length of the Lake to Geneva is
a two and one-half hours long delight.
The water is as blue as indigo and so
clear that the boats upon it seem to be
almost floating in air. The scenery
along either shore is not always i'm
posing, but it is always picturesque,
and at places it is indescribably allur-
ing and restful, as if one might settle
down there for life time and let the
world go by without a thought or a
care. Nyon, a little village where
Joseph Bonaparte once lived, is one Of
these places. And COppet, where1
de Stael lived and died and is
buried, is another. But the shores
close in at last and Lake Leman be-
comes the river Rhone again, blue and
clear and arrowy, and OH both its
ranks as it rushes away from the lake
lies Geneva.
-
Geneva is larger than I thought
nearly 70,000-and its houses are bet
and its streets broader. 1t has street
cars, and dummy line, and innumer-
able fountains, and theatres and art
galleries and museums, and is there
fore very much like other cities. 1t
has some things, however, that are
sal generis. And first-in the mind |
of all good Presbyterians at least-it
was here that John Calvin did his
work, preached sermons that the Pope
could not answer, evolved the hardest
dogmas that words nave expressed
from the gentlest teachings the world
has heard, ruled for many years, in
things, temporal and spiritual, with
an absolute sway, closing the theatres,
sending the people to bed with the
banishing those who differ
ID with him politically and burning
hose who differed with him theologi-
ally. have seen the old cathedral
n which he preached-noting by the
way that Purgatory street led up to it,
II down from it-and the poor house
where he lived, with its "Dominus est
meum" over the door
way. He is buried here, but by his
'wn request the grave is not marked.
have stood ON the hill, too, where
was burned by Calvin's or
Ter, ITO the honor and glory of God"
can Jacques Rousseau lived and died
lere also and his statute adorns lit .
lie island i'm the Rhone i'm front of my {
Iotel. In the old Hotel de Vile {
found the room where the I
Alabama Claims Commission held their e