Boyd Winchester

“ No one can visit the lake, the rock, the fountains, the chapel, read the story painted on wall and tower, hear the local traditions in every man’s mouth, witness the annual festivals, study the history of Switzerland, and consider the character of its people, then think of Tell as a myth, more than he would say that Switzerland and all its heroic people have been a fable since Uri’s handful of patriots rid it of Gessler’s despotism. ”

“ Happy had it been for Switzerland had she gained nothing beyond simple liberty in her contest with her ancient masters, and had continued to cherish pure and healthful feelings. When peace had crowned their heroic struggles, their warlike spirit sought in foreign states the excitement and military glory which were denied them at home. The cravings of avarice and the thirst of plunder are inseparable from the pride of victory. ”

“ With commercial and economic disadvantages difficult to overcome, it would appear the wiser policy for Switzerland to check the rapid transformation of the beautiful and the venerable into cheap and tasteless novelties, with their cast-iron uninterestingness. Nature has done all for Switzerland, from its pure and radiant air to its mountains, lakes, and wild flowers, which spring up as though Aphrodite were still there, “to sow them with her odorous feet.” ”

“ Thus year by year, on some bright morning of the springtide, the sovereign people, not intrusting its rights to a few of its own number, but discharging them itself in the majesty of its corporate person, meets in the open market-place or in the green meadow at the mountain’s foot, to frame the laws to which it yields obedience as its own work, to choose rulers whom it can afford to greet with reverence as drawing their commission from itself. ”

“ Amid so small a number, each person feels that his single vote and exertions are of consequence, and the thought of this excites in him a sense of responsibility, and inspires him with a more lively interest in that government of which he himself is an efficient member. Every man who fills a communal station, however humble, is conscious that he is playing his part in the presence of the whole miniature republic, and that his conduct is every moment exposed to a minute and jealous scrutiny. ”

“ The genius of revolution truly exclaims, “With wings twain do I fly;” of these wings one is discontented labor, the other is over-reaching wealth. The system of the subdivision of the soil among a multitude of small proprietors, for the most part energetic, industrious cultivators of their own holdings, is eminently conservative in its influence, and contributes in no small degree towards maintaining the national spirit of independence and self-reliance, the happy and contented condition of the Swiss peasant proprietors; at once the strength and the safety of the Confederation. ”

“ Knowledge, skill, and strict impartiality belong to the judge; common sense and common feelings to private individuals on a jury. The judge is deaf, blind, and inexorable, and knows only the law; the jury is under the influence of public opinion, or even of public prejudices, which must not be overlooked altogether, and for the sake of the law itself, of peace and good government. The jury is, in fact, a legislative as well as a judicial power, negatively at least, for deciding on law as well as on fact; they may and do silence the law when they please. ”

“ Then comes the advocate of winter, who says, “You should see the loads of snow, falling almost perpendicularly in thick, heavy flakes, or whirled about by the wild wind; on the calming of the snow-storm, you should see the heavy brown clouds in the south assume a tinge more and more golden and bright, till the first patch of blue sky bursts forth amidst the gigantic masses, and at last permits the winter sun, far down in the south, to gladden the earth with a brief sight of the source of light and life;” ”

“ Switzerland has no small influence on the affairs of Europe, as well by its situation as by its warlike genius. There is much of history, but still more political anomaly, written in the very conglomerate map of Switzerland. It is a land of unfulfilled destiny. The eye traces its great water-courses into the most important countries of civilized Europe, and recognizes the lines down which potent influences, social and political, are to descend. ”

“ It can no longer be denied that it is possible to unite the whole globe in such organizations, now that international law, with its hypothesis of the union of many states in one humanity, extends over the greater part of the inhabited earth. There is a steadily-increasing interdependence of the nations of the world, especially of those which give themselves to commerce and manufactures, and alike of those which need a foreign field for a share of their capital. These ties unite them alike for good and evil, and render the prosperity of each dependent on the equal prosperity of all the rest. ”

“ And when the mechanic has acquired industrial skill, not at the expense of his mental training, but along with it and as a necessary part of it, the crafts themselves will assume the old dignity and importance which once they had, but which they have lost in these days of false and foolish artificial standards by which men measure each other. The units or grains of society are continually moving to and fro between the scum and the dregs, from capital to labor and labor to capital, from wealth to poverty and poverty to wealth. ”

“ The excitement attending the popular elections in the United States as now conducted is in the main of a vicious and degrading character. Instead of infusing into the hearts of the people a spirit of patriotism, leading them to value the blessings of the government under which they live, it infuses little but rancor and malignity; giving an opportunity for the indulgence of vicious passions which are born but do not die with the emergency; evolving the gross, vulgar morality which, provided you do no injury to a man’s person or possessions, sees nothing in your conduct towards him to condemn ”

“ Other blocks are only waiting for the last moment of the great lever of nature to take the horrid leap, and bury under some hundred feet of new chaotic ruins the trees and the verdant lawn below. All round is the sound of water, the beat of the waves on the shore, the onward flowing of the river, the rush of the torrent, the splash of the waterfall, or the bubbling of some little stream; everywhere the music of a hurrying stream accompanies you. ”

“ Those who see the sun rise each morning in glory over the Alps, and glowing all day, set in a flood of crimson over the pines, only to return in the splendor of the after-glow on the glacier and snow, claim that autumn is a better time for realizing this sum of marvellous beauty ”

“ All the organs of the Swiss government have an unassuming and civic appearance, retaining in a degree the wisdom, moderation, and simplicity of their ancient manners; those who are invested with high trusts are ever ready and willing to retire to complete equality with their fellow-citizens, from the eminence of civil or military station to which their talents and the call of their country have raised them. There is nothing of pomp and majesty; the soil is too natural for the artificial forms of court diplomacy. ”

“ This water is brought a great distance from mountain streams, and ceaselessly pours its limpid stream through the open viaducts, and at convenient places is diverted into gigantic stone basins; it is never muddy, and is always delightfully cool. Through each of the principal streets flow additional subterraneous streams of this water, furnishing the best of sewers. This is one of the most pleasing sights common to the smallest Swiss village,—the abundance of good water with which it is supplied; it is ever in sight; overflowing, sparkling everywhere, for every use of man and beast. ”

“ Grant that it is difficult to give literary rights the well-defined nature and tangible form of what is known, technically, as real or personal property; still, outside of the ethical or abstract right, copyright is a modern development of the principle of property which commends itself to every sentiment of honor and justice, regardless of any obscurity which may have surrounded or inspired its conception. Who steals a man’s book may, indeed, steal trash, but, at least, it is his own trash, more closely his own than his purse. ”

“ Every one who visits Europe must be amazed at the military influence that everywhere dominates, especially on the continent. “Above the roar of the city street sounds the sharp drum-beat of the passing regiment; in the sweet rural districts the village church-bell cannot drown the bugle peal from the fortress on the hill. France sinks millions in frontier strongholds, Russia masses troops in Poland and on the Pruth, Austria strengthens her fortresses in Galicia, and Germany builds railways to the Rhine and bridges to span its yellow flood.” ”

“ Enlightened freedom, governed and secured by law, upholds the fabric of the Constitution; salubrious streams issuing from education and patriotism, consecrated by religion, mingle with each other, and unite in diffusing fertility through every channel of the state. ”

“ The Referendum is a kind of substitute for the veto; it gives no power to modify, no power to substitute; it is a pure negative. It does not enable the electors to pass laws at their own will; it is a mere veto on such legislation as does not approve itself to the electorate. It is a veto lodged in the hands of a sovereign people. A question is simplified as much as possible, and every citizen has the fullest opportunity, from the public platform, or in the columns of the press, or in private conversation, to advocate or deprecate its adoption ”

“ In a high state of civilization, a man’s book should be everywhere regarded as his property, and should ever be protected as scrupulously as if it were a pair of shoes, upon the construction of which he has also expended his time, his thought, his patience, and such talent and skill as he possesses. The sophistical [Pg 442] plea that the culture and education of our people are to be imperilled, and the cost of books to be placed beyond the reach of the masses, is the mere weak subterfuge of those who are unwilling to be disturbed in their wrongful appropriation of the labor of others. ”

“ The rushing torrents are loud and furious in the descent to the valley; but they have been bridged over by stone and timber, or perhaps by the fallen pine, and the peasant boy sings cheerily, as he strides across the foaming stream. Steam and electricity make the railway train emulate the agility of the chamois, and carry the public across precipices to a height of seven thousand feet. There is scarcely a point of view that attracts tourists, a summit that climbers make fashionable, but at once the mountain is rent and insulted ”

“ Not mere handicraft skill, with ten fingers disassociated from the head and the heart, can sustain mechanical industry. Machinery, when rightly understood and applied, will prove the greatest means of intellectual elevation, for its very purpose is to substitute the thought of the brain for the toil of the hand and the sweat of the brow. How excellent the old Greek poet is when natural forces are made substitutes for human labor: “Woman!” ”

“ As the hour of sunset approaches, the numerous little parks which furnish a view begin to fill up with the old and young; with the first announcing ray of the Alpenglühen the children cease to be boisterous, the fingers that ply the knitting-needle are still, the laborer at work pursues his vocation sedately, and all gaze in silent admiration. Bern abounds in these humanizing, tranquillizing, and health-giving parks or promenades, ornamented with beds of bright flowers and provided with comfortable seats. ”

“ These simple democracies in the Cantons of Switzerland, which have existed for a thousand years, little touched by the stream of European life, deserve our respect for their long history that is rich in many episodes, and for the peaceful and happy existence of their people. They furnish us with a bit of realistic political education, a successful working example of the purest democracy in the world. It throbs with a vital sense of government at first hands; every citizen a very live political entity, and the sense of government very individual. ”

“ Sound travels far in these mountain solitudes, and the bells of the flocks may be heard through them night and day. This concert of cow-bells and of sheep-bells, suddenly heard in solitude and repeated by the echoes, like a distant and mysterious choir, is one of the features of Alpine life that most powerfully impress the feelings and take hold of the imagination. ”

“ Being an area of local self-government, and possessed, to a high degree, of freedom in self-direction, the Commune is not far from being an independent, autonomous entity, forming an imperium in imperio, both politically and economically. Forming the simplest division in the Confederation, still it is of vital importance; its personality to the Canton being what the Canton is to the nation. It inspires with its common life, not simply a life of political activity, but of common social and economical interests. ”

“ The sun rolls his purple tides of light through the air that surrounds their summits, but his beams wake no seed-time and ripen no harvest. The moon and the stars rise and move, and decline along the horizon, century after century, but the sweet vicissitudes of the season and of time move not the sympathies of these pale, stern peaks, over which broods one eternal winter. Upon them the vivifying and ordering syllables of creation seem never to have passed; a realm of chaos reserved to the primeval empire of the formless and the void ”

“ Conceding that man’s work does not deserve this unqualified condemnation, and is in many respects most admirable, one must regret to see the work of nature in Switzerland so ruthlessly spoiled and disfigured; to see the telegraph-pole and the factory chimney rear themselves against the horizon of every landscape; mountain fastnesses and remote valleys consecrated to the charms of nature alone, resounding with the whistle of the locomotive and the stroke of the hammer ”