Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-07
LITTLE THINGS INAuTTlE CITY
IN TOWN OF THUN PEOPLE
HAVE PASSION FOR DETAIL.
Diminutive Houses and Dwarf Gar
dens-Awe-Inspiring Beauty
Of the Alps.

At the present season the Swiss are
greeting the first tourists as the poet
searches for the first flowers of spring.
Everywhere men have been about with
paint boxes. painfully lettering notice
boards with such signs as Grand Ba-
zaar,' afternoon Tea American
Bar" and there has been much ado OF
long CLOSED verandas being opened and
floors shining under polishers.
One Of the first and most noticeable
things In this and any beautiful country
is that prevailing habit among men of
writing, by knife. pen. or pencil. their
names and titles on any bench or wall
opposite wonderful view, or in a great
mans home. or in the doorway of a
castle. 1t is one of the human frailties
for which I find very quick sympathy.
fervently pity the poor-spirited Crea-
lures who find themselves unable to re-
sist the temptation.
Any man finding himself face to face
with a greater power than himself, either
the sign of old power like the still-stand-
ing walls of a castle. or the influence Of
a personality like the room once In
habted by great man. or the marvellous
grandeur of vast chain of glaciers and
mountain peaks. feels his own feeble in
dividuality wrested from him and merged
vessels, awed by their nearness to great
things, hastily chronicle their personali-
ties by signing themselves by those
names that alone differentiate them from
the mass. and charge the nearest object
with the information that they-.James
Ex-have visited the spot.
This pathetic insistence on the part of
man has something in it Of the grandeur
of real stupidity, which, like all elemental
things, has a grand side.
Roof on Everything.
But there is another thing the awe-in-
spring beauty Of the Alps does, and that
to the people who are born under their
shadow. 1t is the cultivation of very
of a passion for detail.
There is. in this town of Thun. which
alone would supply the materials for a
thousand romantic pictures, walled town
within the town proper which teens with
the most minute and expressive details.
First and foremost there is the oldest
notion prevailing that nothing is happy
without roof over it; signboards, letter
boxes, pumps bird boxes in the trees.
every object hung outside the house has
q little slanting roof covered with wooden
tiles, and as often as not a tiny tin flag
gayly painted is stuck on the roof.
The houses themselves, curious enough,
are made all the more quaint by hun
dred additions such as. in one place. a
beehive on the bedroom gallery made in
exact model of the church that stands
above: in another place a model in paint
ed wood of the house itself-galeries,
green shutters and all-iS a nesting place
for a pair of chaff1nches.
The way up to this little walled town
leads on by covered wooden stairway
to an old gate. and after mounting the
stairs one is at the entrance to the fairy
land town of ones lima gination.
Every detail is correct. here the saus-
age merchant has hung inflated sausage
skins to air on a clothes line; there the
shoemaker'S window overlooks herb
between the buttresses of the castle.
Painted coats of arms CLEAN in dark
doorways. most unaccountable sounds
come from within, and fair-haired beau
tiful children feed magic birds Called in
our prosaic country canaries) that hang In
gilded cages on the boughS OF blossom
ing fruit trees
One knows the princess is in her cham
Der waiting her knight.
One knows that witches fly here and
there by night on broomsticks fashioned
with spells in that glooming archway
And here, by my nose, comes out a
dwarf and proceeds to knock snails from
small cherry trees with stick and place
them carefully in basket.
In a Toy Garden.
Directly underneath the frowning and
sishtless walls of the keep is a garden.
not above twelve feet square, which con-
tains q stone fountain. a beehouse, a
glass frame, several beds of flowers and
space for growing an uncommonly
good salad. The proprietor of this para
disc sits overlooking all from a carved
wood balcony. and the blue smoke from
his dinner pipe curlS under the caves of
1t
eral children, COW. wood for burning.
ladders and innumerable odds and ends.
And yet 1t looks as If you could put the
whole thing in your pocket, march away
with it. and nobody be the wiser.
In this little space they make a gTeat
business of an avenue of seven dwarf
chestnut trees about nine feet high apiece,
and one begins to feel that very presently
the whole town will shrink back into the
Illuminated missal page where 1t was I'M
doubtedy born
In front of this jewel-like place the
great solemn mountains lie with their
hoary heads wreathed in gray mist. Be
low the River Aare. blue-green with
shifting lights. rushes. Within a mile
is a deep romantic gorge eaten out OF the
peopled by birds and the spirits of the
woods
We made- the best of our way to the
mouth of the gorge. and passing the
neat ndbltdtloHS anu the
though the people there seemed a little
secret in their looks-plunged boldly into
this somber cleft.
For a while the birds sang and the
stream Uttered mirthfully over the
stones. and then a curious hush began
to come over the place. A daring bird
answered his mate; was silent Then
only the Spirit of the place spoke A
voice full of mysterious note filled tie
gorge. 1t was the torrent singing
The gorge grew darker; huge and naked
rocks lowered above US, their fir-crowned
heads black and somber against a strip
of sky. Pale fiat sheets of sunlight I'll
tered down almost shuddering as If the
kisses of the rocks were cold. And then,
as one mounted higher, came a new
note to the voice of the torrent, and sud
denly out of a cleft a raging waterfall
spouted foaming into a pool a giddy
depth below
Space Between Car Tracks.
From the Literary Digest.
Should street-car tracks on a double
track line he spaced far enouph anart RI