Davos

“ But that means a year of complete invalid life, passed at Davos, or perhaps at some higher place just for the summer months, without ever coming down into lower air.”
“You mean I mustn’t come to England for a year?” asked Edith.
“Not if you want to give yourself the best chance. Davos is delightful in the winter for any man who cares about outdoor sports, but I should say very dull when the ice goes.”
“And what is the risk of infection to others? Would it be better, I mean, for my husband, when he is at Davos to live in a hotel. I suppose I shall take a house, shall I not?” ”

“ I never heard of anything so outrageous in my life! What becomes of domesticity? where's family life? That's what I want to know! and is Winn such a milk and water noodle that he's going to sit down under it and say 'Thank you!' Not that I think he needs to go to Davos for a moment, mind you. Let him come here and have a nice quiet time with me, that's what he wants."
"That's all very well, Father," said Charles. "But what you mean is you don't want to fork out! If the chap's told to go to Davos, he's got to go to Davos, and it's his own look-out whether he takes his wife with him or not. ”

“ Naturally, most Swiss resorts tend to one style or the other; but at Davos, the original cradle of the modern English style, the two schools flourish side by side, as also they do at Mürren, one of the newly-opened Swiss centres. There particularly—at Davos there is a separate English rink, mainly occupied by English skaters—you may see the votaries of the different schools of this now obsolete controversy cheek by jowl on the ice, and lying down together, after a fall, like the lion and the lamb. ”

“ The gradual approach of winter is very lovely in the high Alps. The valley of Davos, where I am writing, more than five thousand feet above the sea, is not beautiful, as Alpine valleys go, though it has scenery both picturesque and grand within easy reach. But when summer is passing into autumn, even the bare slopes of the least romantic glen are glorified. Golden lights and crimson are cast over the grey-green world by the fading of innumerable plants. Then the larches begin to put on sallow tints that deepen into orange, burning against the solid blue sky like amber. ”

“ During the six centuries through which they have lived nobles in Davos, they have sent forth scores of fighting men to foreign lands, ambassadors to France and Venice and the Milanese, governors to Chiavenna and Bregaglia and the much-contested Valtelline. ”

“ Winn had a feeling that he ought to keep away from her, but Davos was an inconvenient place for keeping away. People were always turning up when one least expected them, or one turned up oneself. Privacy and publicity flashed together in the sunny air. Even going off up a mountain with a book was hardly the resource it seemed ”

“ Davos is like all the places where our sort of people go—fashion or disease—it don't matter a penny which—they're all over the place itself, in and out of each other's pockets, and yet get a mile or two out and nobody's in sight. Funny how people like each other. I don't like 'em, you know. I hate 'em."
In the early February afternoon the valley lay before them singularly still and white. There were no fir-trees on the sides of the abrupt snow slopes, and it took Winn some time to rediscover a faint pathway half blotted out by recent snow. ”

“ The Davos rooms are excellently suited for our purpose, and she can remain there during convalescence. Then in a few weeks, if all goes well, we will gradually let in more and more atmospheric pressure and see how the bone stands it. If it has united and she suffers no uncomfortable symptoms, she can step out into the world a free woman.”
“Will you undertake it?” I cried. “It will be the crowning triumph of your life.”
“If she gives her consent,” answered Chetwynd.
That evening we had another interview with Mrs. Kort. Chetwynd explained everything to her with the utmost fulness. ”

“ He was not a very efficient vice-consul, and was never altogether happy in the East, being increasingly anxious to obtain employment in England where he would not be cut off from the literary world. In May 1913 the state of his health, which had been failing for some time, made necessary his immediate removal to Switzerland, and in Switzerland he died, of consumption, at Davos on 8 January 1915. ”

“ He rode over from the station to the stadt park, where the band was playing. There he dismounted, for he was going further—Aussee is not very interesting, but it principally serves as a good starting-point for trips to many of the charming lakes with which Styria is dotted. After asking his way, Davos passed the swimming baths, and keeping on the left bank of a tiny stream, he presently found himself walking through an earthly paradise. Since his advent in Ischl, where he drank the waters and endeavoured to quiet his overtaxed nerves, he had made up his mind to visit Alt-Aussee ”

“ The population of the canton in 1900 was 104,520. Of this number 55,155 (mainly near Coire and Davos, in the Prättigau and in the Schanfigg valley) were Protestants, while 49,142 (mainly in the Bündner Oberland, the Val Mesocco and the Oberhalbstein) were Romanists, while there were also 114 Jews (81 of whom lived in Davos) . ”

“ Surrounded by powerful neighbors, the mountaineers of these little cantons seem to have imbibed, with the purer air of heaven in which they live on the mountains, that degree of stern courage, determination, and love of liberty which enables them to resist the pressure of the great nations by which they are surrounded. Switzerland, like the wedge of steel, tempered by the spirit of republicanism, has formed one point of pressure which the monarchies around her have been unable to resist. ”

“ I am first to visit the coal miners of Flanders, who have sent me a very kind letter of invitation and of thanks for saving their lives. We are then going to Austria, where I shall show Vienna to Lady Davy, and then visit the mines; and lastly, before I return, we are going to visit Naples.
“I have the commands of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent to make experiments upon some very interesting ancient manuscripts, which I hope to unfold. I had yesterday the honour of an audience from his Royal Highness, and he commissioned me to pursue this object in the most gracious and kind manner.... ”

“ What a pity Judge Douglas does not live in Switzerland, the oldest Republic now extant. Those benighted people, the Swiss, have been for centuries indulging in the foolish delusion that they were free, and that they had a Federal system of government. Why, there is no slavery in Switzerland—there is not the necessary variety of institutions there. Their States are all free States. There is uniformity there. How can they have Federal institutions with uniformity? How can there be liberty without variety? Impossible. Poor, innocent souls! they think they are free, and have no slaves! ”

“ We drive in close companionship with the Reuss, through the vale, and a more beautiful vale than this is watered by no river. It has also been bathed with blood in more than one bitter combat. The French, the Austrians, and Russians have fought with each other and the sons of the country, more than once, in this, and the vale of Urseren. Poor, little Switzerland! Long and severe has been the fight for the freedom and the peace which thou enjoyest; nowhere more severe than in the Forest Cantons, the primeval home of the Swiss people. ”

“ They contended with one another who should take home the most destitute; if the invalids and sufferers had any difficulty in walking, men carried them in their arms into their houses. The heavy charge to the state and the people was cheerfully accepted. From the time they had heard of the cruelty of Louis XIV., and of the edicts of the Duke of Savoy, the Swiss had been preparing to offer aid; and when they knew that the Vaudois were to be exiled, and coming to Switzerland, these preparations were redoubled. ”

“ And Austria in such matters is fifty years behind Switzerland. The British grumbler (who has made Switzerland) is still more almost unknown in the dual kingdom. The dullness of life is almost incredible, and what gaieties there are—the Christmas tree, the New Year's Day ball, the concert of Tyrolians, and the gypsy band—as in all irregulated establishments, turned everything topsy-turvy, and converted stagnation into utter misery."
We had a visit at Abbazia from the Dowager Lady Galway, and Richard had an attack of gout when the snow came on, and on the 19th we had an earthquake. ”

“ The rising powers of the cities, still more the prowess of the mountaineers, the Waldstetten, who soon after Duke Leopold's Italian campaign had vanquished him and his shining warriors at the famous battle of Morgarten, resisted with growing success the Savoyard and the Hapsburg sovereignty, and divided in ever [Pg 30] changing alliances the fermenting elements of the tottering feudal society. The horn of the Alps, sounding the tocsin over the rocky defile of the Swiss Thermopylae, announced the approaching end of the feudal rule of the middle ages and the dawn of liberty in Switzerland. ”

“ This Waldmann is indeed the most conspicuous figure in Switzerland in the fifteenth century, and forms a singular contrast to the humble recluse Zum Ranft, for he shared in all the vicissitudes of his times. Full of vital energy, teeming with lofty schemes, his life is a bright picture, darkened however, here and there, by deep shadows thrown by that stirring, luxurious, fast-living epoch, an epoch itself coloured by the Burgundian wars. The career of this remarkable man is a piece of moral, social, and political history, quite worthy of a few moments' notice. ”

“ Until the overthrow of the Third Napoleon and the establishment of a republic in France, nowhere else in Europe did the American feel himself so much at home as in Switzerland; and to those rugged mountaineers of the Alps is due the credit of keeping alive the spirit of liberty almost submerged beneath the flood of monarchical ideas which inundated Europe. Every republic on earth, and each republican, should feel indebted to little Switzerland that the fire of freedom was not entirely extinguished. ”

“ I will let you into a secret," added he, looking big with importance and mystery, "but it must be strictly between us. Your hand! You think the Duke has fourteen thousand Swiss with him? They are scattered to the winds. The messenger we despatched to Zurich and Bern has returned. All the Swiss at Blaubeuren and on the Alb will be obliged to return home immediately."
"Return home?" said Albert, with astonishment, "and for what purpose? Are they at war themselves in their own country?" ”

“ Grandson, Morat, and Nancy stamped the Eidgenossen as the enfants gâtés of Europe, and as a nation of the highest military standing on the Continent, nay, even as an umpire in continental politics, and a guardian of the peace. Everybody lavished flattering praises on the prowess of the Swiss. Nation after nation made overtures to them—France foremost, Italy, the Pontiff, the Emperor, distant Hungary, and even England, this last desirous of breaking the French alliance. ”

“ Amongst the band of patriots two men stand out as leaders. One was César de La Harpe, a noble-minded and enthusiastic Vaudois, who, however, was more concerned for his own canton than for Switzerland at large. The other was Peter Ochs, of Basel, a shrewd and able man, but ambitious, and a creature of France. La Harpe had once been taunted by a Bernese noble, who reminded him that Vaud was subject to Bern, and this he never forgot. ”

“ Swiss brandished the sword against Swiss on the plains of Italy and France; and the intrigues of strangers filled these high valleys of the Alps, so long the abode of simplicity and peace, with envy and discord. Led away by the attraction of gold, sons, labourers, and servants, stole away from the chalets of alpine pastures towards the banks of the Rhine or the Po. Helvetic unity was crushed under the slow step of mules loaded with gold. The object of the Reformation in Switzerland—for there too it had a political aspect—was to re-establish the unity and ancient virtues of the cantons. ”

“ Now they had reached the foot of the most gigantic of the Alps, whose heads are hoary with eternal snows, and whose precipitous sides are scored by a few perilous paths by which no traveller can come without danger. The Vaudois had to traverse the forests of the lower grounds, to clamber rocks surmounted with silver snows, hollowed out with dazzling glaciers and torrent waterfalls; they came not into this sublime scenery to admire the works of God, but to shun men and cities, to breathe free air—as did the chamois bounding on the heights above them, or the eagle that soared over their heads. ”

“ The Vaudois were to be driven out; their hills should harbour heretics no more. Once and for all Savoy should be cleared from them and their doctrine. As Louis had purified the soil of France, so Victor Amadeus would purge Piedmont.
The prisons were to be emptied. The twelve thousand men, women, and children shut up in the several fortresses must go. To Switzerland, since the Swiss would receive them—but across the Alps, and out of the valleys at any cost, and any whither. ”

“ We stopped at Bex, the last Swiss village, for the Valais was already united to France. A Portuguese brigade had left Geneva to go and occupy the Valais: singular state of Europe, to have a Portuguese garrison at Geneva going to take possession of a part of Switzerland in the name of France! I had a curiosity to see the Cretins of the Valais, of whom I had so often heard. This miserable degradation of man affords ample subject for reflection; but it is excessively painful to see the human countenance thus become an object of horror and repugnance. ”