Cañon City record., 1909-12-02

And yet the Swiss mountains lose
none of their charms and their beauty
by being accessible. 1t was not their
remoteness-their inaccessibility-th
gave them charm. The Alps are beau
tiful even with hotels whitening every
peak and with electric lights on a
thousand finicular railroads spark
ling in the twilight.
To one who is used to the rugged
high Rockies the soft beauty of the
Alps seems SO different a thing many
western Americans are inclined to
discount the Alps forgetting their real
beauty. 1t is possible that in many
other things we are liable to mistake
difference for inferiority
But there is one glory of the Rock
les and another glory of the Alps and
chief glory of the Alps Is atmospher-
ic. The Rockies lift into thin air.
They start in the foothills at an ele-
vation higher than the average Alpine
peak.
And while the high Alps rise to a
great height-the ranges and accesso-
ry mountains are not much higher
than Green Mountain Falls and Boul-
der. Colorado. So upon these noun
tains the air plays many pranks-
paints many backgrounds. One even
ing after a mild misty day in Lucerne
we saw a most marvellous thing -
real black and white picture in ma
ture.
The snow had capped the peaks
with white. Then, after sunset, the
mist rinsed the color out of whatever
afterglow there might have been, and
left the light dim enough not to show
the greens and browns of the distant
And thus all the landscape turned
black and gray and white-a most
unusual sight to our prairie eyes.
Another evening we saw a most
beautiful Alpine afterglow that light
ed up the snow caps of The mountains
most gloriously long after the sun
had set in the valley. The glow had 1
faint rose color in 1t, but gradually
faded into sepulchral white.
Essentially the Swiss are a kind
people. That is why they are so
brave. They are gentle and oblig-
ing and immensely respectable. There
is no folishness about the red
checked girls one sees everywhere in
Switzerland. They are frank. cordial
blond creatures with bad figures. as a
rule. and blue eyes that are not
ashamed with any amazement.' More
over, they grow old moro gracefully
than any OF the women OF Europe.
That does not mean that women
who work hard in youth and sap their
lives out before they are thirty are
pretty. Not even American women OF
that type are beautiful
Perhaps it means, that owing to 80
cial and economic conditions. women
do not have to wear themselves out
as their mothers did. and hence they
are beautiful into their forties and
fifties. 1t may be pertinent to digress
here and present this query: Are not
women the world over. as a rule, ad-
ding a decade to their years OF youth? !?
1t does not seem that there are more
handsome women between 35 and SIS
than there were rs years ago. Or per-
haps boy in his teens isn't SO chari-
table TO the minor failings OF a woman
in her forties as a man Is In his for
ties. But discounting the pride OF
youth, II does seem that today, all
over the world, a woman whose fam
lily income is between SO and 81 900
week-a wide range. surely-this
woman retains her youthful freshness
and charm longer than her grand
mother retained hers.
Labor-saving machinery seems to
have done that much for the woman
in general everywhere In civilization.
And the Swiss women, who live In
one of the most highly civilized coun-
tries on the planet, show the soften
ing effects of their freer life in their
faces.
AS for those who still are bound
down to hard. grimy. body wracking,
incessant toil-they fade In their
teens and twenties in Switzerland just
as they do in Emporia. For womanly
beauty is one of the worlds luxuries.
II used to be given only to royalty;
then to the nobility; then to the rich;
and now it, like sanitary plumbing,
books no education warm clothes, and
free conscience. is the heritage of
the well-to-do.
Childhood and youth always are