Chillon

“ Is it better, I wonder, to begin life with a few illusions, a little glow, a pardonable capacity for enthusiasm, or to be so healthily free from every breath of sentiment as to be capable—at eighteen—of buying comic bears within the melancholy portals of Chillon. ”

“ A correspondent familiar with Lausanne informs me that the Castle of Chillon is not visible from Rosemont, and that Dickens in these first days must have mistaken some other object for it. "A long mass of mountain hides Chillon from view, and it only becomes visible when you get about six miles from Lausanne on the Vevay road, when a curve in the road or lake shows it visible behind the bank of mountains." ”

“ Arrived at the narrowed road, and the high grey crag opposite Chillon, Fanny walked to the drawbridge, and but for the mist in the valley of the Rhone rising gradually and threatening, we should have paid it one visit more. The view of the castle is far grander from the shore than lake, as its uniformity is broken by the three massive towers and the keep which surmounts them, and it wears the sober grey which should be the livery of a feudal castle. ”

“ Winterbourne hesitated a moment. “I should much rather go to Chillon with you.”
“With me?” asked the young girl with the same placidity.
She didn’t rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done; and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought it possible she was offended. “With your mother,” he answered very respectfully.
But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss Daisy Miller. “I guess my mother won’t go, after all,” she said. “She don’t like to ride round in the afternoon. ”

“ At half past three this morning, we were aroused from our slumbers at St. Maurice, to take the omnibus for Villeneuve, at the head of the Lake of Geneva. It was just after sunrise, on another soft and lovely morning, when we stepped on board the steamer 'Le Leman' to sail down this glorious lake, now placid and smooth as a mirror. The boat was well filled, principally with English tourists. We passed near the walls of the famous Castle of Chillon, where Bonnivard, Byron's 'Prisoner,' lingered in chains:
'Chillon! ”

“ No waters are so blue as those of the Lake of Geneva. As you sail down it on a beautiful summer day, it shines like blue satin shot with gold. It is a fairyland, a dreamland, where mighty mountains cast their blue-black shadows down into the azure waters and a brilliant sun saturates the air with colour. Sail a little farther up the lake to Montreux, where the rock fortress of Chillon, the prison in which mediæval cruelty collected all its instruments of torture, projects into the water. This witness to wild and terrible passions lies in the midst of scenery which may well be called enchanted. ”

“ Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in Geneva whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover ”

“ Chillon, Castle of, a castle and state prison built on a rock, 62 ft. from the shore, at the eastern end of the Lake of Geneva; surnamed the Bastille of Switzerland, in which Bonivard, the Genevese patriot, was, as celebrated by Byron, incarcerated for six years; it is now an arsenal.
Chiloë (77) , a thickly wooded island off the coast, and forming a province, of Chile, 115 m. long from N. to S., and 43 m. broad; inhabited chiefly by Indians; exports timber; is said to contain vast deposits of coal. ”

“ There is no more beautiful drive in Europe than that along Lake Geneva, from Lausanne to Vevey on a summer evening, and there never was a calmer, sweeter summer evening than that of our return. Oh, one must drive slowly on such an evening! We were anxious to arrive, but not to have the drive ended. Far down the lake the little towns we knew so well began to appear—Territet, Montreux, Clarens, Vevey la Tour—we could even make out the towers of Chillon. ”

“ The life of this lake, I always think, increases as it leaves Geneva and sweeps round towards the mountains and the entrance to the Rhone Valiey. The town itself, scorched in summer, and desolated in winter by the icy bise noire that sucks down through the trough of the long curve from Lausanne, cutting like broken glass, presents itself to my imagination as the point where the Rhone escapes only too gladly. Even the seabirds prefer the Chillon end. The trees themselves grow more vital and independent towards the eastern tip ”

“ Such was the great ruler and law-giver who easily supplanting his niece as head of the house of Savoy, reduced to a loyal vassalage all the nobles of Roman Switzerland. Not without opposition from the bishops and feudal lords nor without jealousy from the German emperor did Count Pierre arrive at a height where he saw only heaven above and his mountainous domain! "From Italy through the Valais," so a chronicler of his house relates, "at the rumor that a rival German governor of Vaud was besieging his castle of Chillon, he reached the heights above Lake Leman. ”

“ Rejection cannot alienate their faithful hearts; years and absence cannot chill their fervour. They belong to a race of men who, if they ever existed at all, are now as extinct as the mastodon.
It was Miss Jane Porter who successfully transferred to a conquering hero that exquisite sensibility of soul which had erstwhile belonged to the conquering heroine,—to the Emmelines and Adelinas of fiction. Dipping her pen “in the tears of Poland,” she conveyed the glittering [87] drops to the eyes of “Thaddeus of Warsaw,” whence they gush in rills,—like those of the Prisoner of Chillon’s brother. ”

“ The Kemble family raised the English stage to a perfection and dignity it has never since attained.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. Born 1788.—Died 1824.—George III.—George IV.
A poet, whose magnificent and musical language and passionate power conceal the want of principle and poverty of heart of most of his poems. Childe Harold is the most celebrated of his works, The Prisoner of Chillon and The Bride of Abydos, the best in aim. Lord Byron’s life was a bad one. He died at Missolonghi, in Greece. ”

“ But old Joe Chillis had a distinct comprehension of the situation, and felt himself to be master of it. He had gone over to Astoria that day, not to drink whisky and tell stories, but to do a good turn for the "White Rose." Failing in his purpose, he was going back again, at any cost, to make up for the miscarriage of that effort. Death itself could not frighten him; for what was the Columbia in a storm to the dangers he had passed through in years of hunting and trapping in the Rocky Mountains? ”

“ Bukta bowed to the floor. "Good Heavens!" thought Chinn, "and this blinking pagan is a first-class officer, and as straight as a die! I may as well round it off neatly." He went on:
"If the Satpura Bhils ask the meaning of the sign, tell them that Jan Chinn would see how they kept their old promises of good living. Perhaps they have plundered; perhaps they mean to disobey the orders of the Government; perhaps there is a dead man in the jungle; and so Jan Chinn has come to see." ”

“ Chillingworth took him by the arm, saying,—
"Come home—come home; no more of this at present; you will but make yourself seriously unwell."
"No—no—no."
"Come home now, I pray you; you are by far too much excited about this matter to pursue it with the calmness which should be brought to bear upon it."
"Take advice, Henry," said Marchdale, "take advice, and come home at once."
"I will yield to you; I feel that I cannot control my own feelings—I will yield to you, who, as you say, are cooler on this subject than I can be. Oh, Flora, Flora, I have no comfort to bring to you now." ”

“ Presently, Chillis sat up and looked about him. "Have you got me the oars?" he said to the mail-carrier.
"You won't row any more to-night, Joe, I guess," the carrier answered, smiling grimly. "Look at your shoulder, man."
"Shoulder be d——d!" retorted Chillis. "Beg pardon, ladies; I didn't see you. Been asleep, haven't I? Perhaps, sence you seem to think I'm not fit for rowin', one of these ladies will do me the favor to help me put myself in order. Have you a piece of court-plaster, or a healing salve, ma'am?"—to the elder woman. "Ladies mostly keep sech trifles about them, I believe." ”

“ Chinn kept his own counsel, except as to the shooting of the tiger, and Bukta embroidered that tale with a shameless tongue. The skin was certainly one of the finest ever hung up in the mess, and the first of many. When Bukta could not accompany his boy on shooting-trips, he took care to put him in good hands, and Chinn learned more of the mind and desire of the wild Bhil in his marches and campings, by talks at twilight or at wayside pools, than an uninstructed man could have come at in a lifetime. ”

“ Cabin won't run away; wife won't scold." "Stop along ov us till mornin';" were the various rather noisy and ejaculatory remarks upon Chillis's avowed intention of abandoning good and appreciative company, without stopping to tell one of his ever-ready tales of Indian and bear fighting in the Rocky Mountains thirty years before.
"Why, you ain't goin' out again till you've shaken off the water, Joe. You're dripping like a Newfoundland;" said Captain Rumway, as Chillis put down his empty glass, and turned toward the door, which he had entered not five minutes before. ”

“ Mr. Chillingworth was inclined to think he was some sort of a priest. He based this theory on the veneration which Fu had shown on the night he had seen his big countryman at the burial of the dead in the cove. For the rest, the tall Mongolian ate by himself and had his own cabin. Not by word or sign, since they had been on board, had he conveyed a hint that he had ever seen Tom before, although he must have recognized the boy he had conducted to Simon Lake at the camp in the canyon. ”

“ Behind him a young and wiry Bhil, in uniform, was taking the trees out of Chinn's mess-boots.
Chinn's eyes were full of tears. The old man held out his keys.
"Foreigners are bad people. He will never come back again. We are all servants of your father's son. Has the Sahib forgotten who took him to see the trapped tiger in the village across the river, when his mother was so frightened and he was so brave?"
The scene came back to Chinn in great magic-lantern flashes. "Bukta!" he cried; and all in a breath: "You promised nothing should hurt me. Is it Bukta?" ”

“ Chillingworth had met with a man who was his superior in point of strength, for he not only withstood the utmost force that Chillingworth could bring against him, but maintained himself, and turned his strength against the doctor. ”

“ Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man. He had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on himself. ”

“ A dense woodland of oaks and larches and firs, stretching north-eastward almost to the valley of the Indre, and crowded with game of every kind, formed probably no small part of the attractions which were to make Chinon the favourite retreat of Fulk Nerra’s greatest descendant. In those ruined halls, where a rich growth of moss and creepers has replaced the tapestried hangings, earlier and later memories—memories of the Black Count or of the Maid of Orleans—seem to an English visitor only to flit like shadows around the death-bed of Henry Fitz-Empress. ”

“ Before a single individual could rise to his feet the Chilian, manacled by one wrist as he was, had flung himself over the end of the truck and, falling between the metals, was now being dragged along by the train, his shrieks of agony filling all who heard them with horror. ”

“ Gorse and heather, arbutus and fern, show a softer radiance, less dazzling, but more sympathetic; silvery rills course down the declivities which surround the lakes, now visible through the trees and giant shrubs, now hidden, but always with a murmur of sound like distant notes of the fairy music which once, it is said, woke the echoes of Killarney. And for those who have the hearing ear it may do so still; with unbelievers the “good people” have no intercourse. ”

“ It could hardly be a Peruvian soldier so far away from his friends, thought Jim; moreover, the individual was treading stealthily, as though in fear of being heard. The next moment the fugitive Chilian pushed his way cautiously into the path, looking warily to right and left as he did so. Douglas immediately sprang out from his hiding-place, nearly scaring the man to death for a moment. The Chilian proved to be an officer who had formerly been on board the O’Higgins, and he and Douglas recognised each other instantly. ”

“ But she did not repine, as her father did, that she should be debarred from all these sights and circles, so she replied,
'Papa, as I have often said, one can live without these accessories and surroundings. I have before urged you to quit even Chilcote, and let us go home—home to Essilmont—or what remains of it,' she added, in a broken voice, as she thought of Bevil Goring, and how a new light, bright as summer sunshine, had fallen on her life at Chilcote now. ”