Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-07-23


heights for long time yet. In a sense it never
leaves them. Even in August traces of it Tnger
VWeetIy against the edges OF the snow-felds and
along the eversparkling pastures where the tree
line stops. When nature has grown SNUG and
lazy among the dust and heat below, one has only
to climb thousand feet or two to recapture all
the lost brflliance of May and early June The
grass never seems to lose its vivid freshness its
emerald coloring; the Iarches still clap their lit
tie hands, so brightly gloved; the pines seem to
have shaken off their snow only the day before
And water runs everywhere pouring in countless
rivulets to feed the bigger torrents down below
Spring never leaves the higher Alpine valleys
Her cave is somewhere just above the tree-Iine
She sings and dances there eternalIy.
It is the habit more and more to sheer little
at Switzerland. She is a pretty, bourgeois state,
the people unpicturesque and rather sordid a
mere nation of hotelkeepers who exist to pick the
tourists pockets She is played out, vugarized
hopelessy commonplace. Switzerland has no at
mosphere, no shading, coloring but that of
the chromograph order. The tourist agents rum
It. In this there lies certain truth. Switzerland
is playground, and need not pretend to be any
thing else There is little enough Atmosphere
for artistic effects and the coloring is monotonous
repetition Of brilliant green meadows, blue forests
with white and black peaks that cut into azure
skies without soft shading in Scotland, Ireland
and moister climates. And the people are bour-
geois, unpicturesque and unimaginatiye: though
provided they keep good hotels at reasonable
prices, there is not much fault to be found with
them on that score The fortunate can ALWAYS
go further af1eld to Dalmatia Bosnia the Caucasus
if they will. The big world offers endless variety
still to those who have the time and purse to
measure it; but for the majority stricter condi-
tons govern the selection of travel routes and for
these Switzerland must hold first place for many
generations to come
And there are few places where conditions are
sweet and clean and wholesome, as refresh
ing, stimulating and pure high Alpine valley
with its coy, cheap hotels, in the early summer
months. Their contribution to the health of En-
rope is no negligible quantity if they con-
tribute to the deathrolI, too. Compared to MANY a
seaside resort with it's demoralizing influences of
gambling, overdressing, artificial gaieties to say
nothing Of other undesirable elements such places
favor and attract, these high Alpine valleys are In
every way superior But it must be added that
finds in places usually what one brings to
them holiday becomes the reflection of the
mind that seeks it, and ugltness and cheapness in
the heart find ugliness and cheapness also in the
forests, mountains, flowers and in the very at
mosphere Scenery is scenery, but the nterpre-
tation is of the mind. In the last generation the
world has grown UNNECESSARILY more vulgar Our
fathe' were happy in Switzerland; children
vote it dull, perhaps played out.
Changes have certainly 1t these last
twenty years. The little inns, where pensions