Lucerne

“ Lucerne, September.—Berne, I find, has been filling with tourists at the expense of Lucerne, which I have been having almost to myself. There are six people at the table d’hôte; the excellent dinner denotes on the part of the chef the easy leisure in which true artists love to work. The waiters have nothing to do but lounge about the hall and chink in their pockets the fees of the past season. The day has been lovely in itself, and pervaded, to my sense, by the gentle glow of a natural satisfaction at my finding myself again on the threshold of Italy. ”

“ The Lake of Lucerne, just peeping through the trees, and the mountain ranges beyond, peak above peak covered with their snow white mantle made the scene entrancing. After we had tired our eyes with looking on the lovely landscape we went to enjoy our dejeuner of fish, fowl, bacon, eggs and coffee. We left our hotel for the first visit into the lovely town of Lucerne. It is not a large town but well built and kept very clean. The accommodation for getting about is good, by tram or ’bus or cab, and not too expensive. ”

“ All travellers who go to Lucerne must make an excursion to the Righi, a mountain a few miles from the town, which is exalted above other mountains of Switzerland, not because it is higher—for, in fact, it is much lower than many of them—but that it stands alone, apart from a chain, and so commands a view on all sides—a view of vast extent and of infinite variety. ”

“ All our friends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, and the rushing blue-gray river Aaar, and the broad level green valley; and across at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to the clouds out of that valley; and up at the microscopic chalets perched upon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfully through the drifting veil of vapor ”

“ A lot of people do not know how to have a good time or how to see a strange and delightful place. I meet many people who do not care for Europe, or Italy, or Switzerland,—the people who bring a stack of trunks and good clothes and have to put in their time dressing up only to be out-dressed by somebody else.
But Lucerne has one thing different. It is the “Lion of Lucerne,” the monument erected in honor of the Swiss soldiers who died in the French palace defending the rotten Bourbon dynasty when the revolutionists broke in and captured the king and queen. ”

“ At the other end of the view is the snow-covered Rigi, and there are all kinds of Alps in the background. Lucerne looks like an American summer resort. It is made up of hotels and souvenir shops, and elegantly dressed women parade up and down the promenade walks, while rich old gentlemen sit uncomfortably around the piazzas and wish the women-folks had let them stay at home. It is astonishing how many men act as if they would give a good deal to be at work somewhere rather than in Switzerland “enjoying themselves.” ”

“ Well, I didn't go back—I went to Lucerne, next morning.
I wanted to see the Alps, of course, and we got a distant view only of them from Zurich. Here, at Lucerne, we have them in all their grand beauty.
I don't mind admitting to you that my purse would not allow my stopping longer at the Schweizerhof, than to merely take a good look at the exterior. I had with me the Lucerne elders' address, and easily found them. They directed me to a friend who had cheap rooms, and it is here I am writing to you. The view is just as fine from my window as from the big hotel—nay, finer, for I am higher up ”

“ And along the banks of this wonderful lake is a whole town of hotels, gay with many colored flags, their terraces and balconies rising tier above tier, like the galleries of a grand theater whose scenery is the mighty Alps....
In summer Lucerne is the Hyde Park of Switzerland. Its quays are thronged by people of every nation. There you meet pale women from the lands of snow, and dark women from the lands of the sun; tall, six-foot English women, and lively, alert, trim Parisian women, with the light and graceful carriage of a bird on the bough. ”

“ Like every other part of Switzerland, the shores of Lucerne Lake are thickly inhabited. No signs of poverty are anywhere visible, and an air of comfort is diffused over the whole district. The most fruitful portion, however, is pre-eminently the strip of land lying at the base of the Rigi, where the straight wall of the mountain rises precipitately facing the north. So proverbial is its fertility that it is called the “Garden of Lucerne,” and through winter and summer that town is supplied with fruit and vegetables by the peasants of this neighborhood. ”

“ Those who approach Lucerne directly by the railway fitly approach the most dramatic of lakes by the most dramatic of vestibules. For those who use their eyes, indeed, there are abundant distant hints of the coming splendour; the Alps are first visible, in tolerably clear weather, as we descend the long wall of Jura on to the Aar at Aarberg; and further on, beyond the peaty flats round the Mauensee, and as we quit the lake of Sempach, Pilatus and Rigi, like two tall sentinels ”

“ We do not care if they do....
The great quay of Lucerne is delightful; as good as the seashore at Dieppe or Trouville. Before you, limpid and blue, lies the lake, which from the character of its shores, at once stern and graceful, is the finest in Switzerland. In front rises the snow-clad peaks of Uri, to the left the Rigi, to the right the austere Pilatus, almost always wearing his high cap of clouds. ”

“ Far, far below, the blue waters of Lake Lucerne mirrored the glowing colors of the mountain-peaks beyond its farther shore, and nearer, among the foothills of old Pilatus itself, a little village nestled among green trees, its roofs clustered about a white church-spire. Now the bells in the steeple began to ring, and the sound floated out across the green fields spangled with yellow daffodils, and reached Mother Adolf where she stood. Bells from more distant villages soon joined in the clamor, until all the air was filled with music and a hundred echoes woke in the mountains. ”

“ Swiss cottages nestle in the hillside, showing little else but the enormous roofs that come nearly to the ground, giving the cottages such a picturesque look; when suddenly, shining through showers, appeared the Alps, like molten silver in the early light, the clouds drifting over them, now hiding, now disclosing, the enchanting heights. Almost every tourist stops at Lucerne, as it possesses direct communication with all parts of Europe. Lying in the very heart of Switzerland, it enables travellers to get to all important spots with comparative ease. ”

“ Its prosperity has always been bound up with the St Gotthard Pass, so that the successive improvements effected on that route (mule path in the 13th century, carriage road 1820–1830, and railway tunnel in 1882) have had much effect on its growth. It is beautifully situated on the banks of the river Reuss, just as it issues from the Lake of Lucerne, while to the south-west rises the rugged range of Pilatus, balanced on the east by the more smiling ridge of the Rigi and the calm waters of the lake. ”

“ Arnold von Winkelried and Nicolas von der Flüe belong to Stans, and Stans, though actually set back a couple of miles or so from the margin of the lake, essentially belongs to the Bay of Alpnach; whilst even the little Lucernersee, though so humble in scenic splendour, leads at any rate to the quays of Lucerne itself, with its girdle of towers and ancient bridges, and with the banners in its Rathhaus that were wrested from the Austrian on the field of Sempach, and the armour there stripped from the dead body of Duke Leopold. ”

“ A fortnight has passed; we have been hither and thither; now we are at Lucerne. Peopled with better inhabitants, Lucerne might well do for Heaven. It is drawing towards eventide, and Elizabeth and I are sitting hand in hand on a quiet bench, under the shady linden trees, on a high hill up above the lake. There is nobody to see us, so we sit peaceably hand in hand. ”

“ One cannot bear too much exaltation. After having dwelt awhile among the sublimities of Nature, it is a relief to come down to her more common and familiar aspects; the sunshine is doubly grateful after the gloom of Alpine passes; meadows and groves are more pleasant to the eye than snow-clad peaks; and more sweet to the ear than the roar of mountain torrents, is the murmur of softly-flowing streams. From Lucerne, our way lies over that undulating country which we had surveyed the day before from the summit of the Righi, winding around the Lake of Zug, and ending at the Lake of Zurich. ”

“ THEY tell you over here that the Alps have the robust beauty of the Alleghanies combined with the scenic grandeur of the Rockies; but there is not the slightest duplicate of the Rocky Mountains that we discovered. Surely nothing could exceed in loveliness Lucerne. As we wound down the hillside near the foot of the lake, backed by precipitous mountains running away to where their peaks lift up their snows, we saw below us, and around a beautifully colored bay, Lucerne. ”

“ When at Lucerne we gaze at the noble monument set up by Switzerland in memory of her sons who were massacred in Paris, it is well at times to remember how the Swiss lion was at the hire of the very jackals of the world. ”

“ Sempach itself, like Sursee, is a picturesque old town, with another quaint old gateway. The lake, though five miles long, is quite outside the mountains, though the splintered crags of Pilatus give a distant hint of Alpine splendour. The remaining nine miles or so to Lucerne are perhaps a trifle dull, and the entrance to the city is through the usual straggling suburb—out of all reasonable proportion to the place itself—that conducts us too frequently to a town in Switzerland. ”

“ We took our two old servants, Lea and John (Gidman) , abroad with us, and Charlotte Leycester accompanied us to Lucerne, where the family was established for the hot summer months at the Pension Faller, which stands at the end of a long green terrace behind the cathedral cloisters, with a glorious view of Mont Pilate and all the range of mountains on the other side of the lake. George Sheffield came out to Lucerne to accompany me thence to Austria ”

“ The town of Lucerne is connected with Flüelen by the main line of the St Gotthard railway (32 m.) , though only portions of this line (from Lucerne to Küssnacht, 101/2 m., and from Brunnen to Flüelen, 7 m.) run along the shore; Brunnen is also connected with Flüelen by the splendid carriage road known as the Axenstrasse (71/4 m.) ”

“ Lucerne, 30th August.—Early this beautiful morning we set out in a little, open carriage, along the lake Lowertz, out of the Canton of Schwytz into that of Lucerne. The country resembled a vast orchard; in the meadows the people were busy with their second hay harvest. The people here have carried cultivation as high as possible up the mountains, combating with the mountain and the severity of the cold for a foot-breadth of cultivatable land. Amongst and by means of large stones, they collect and keep together the soil, and in it plant a few potatoes or flowering plants. ”

“ You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the best hotel in Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it steamers go five times a day the whole length of the lake and return, making the excursion in five hours.
It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics intimate a doubt that such a man as Tell ever lived; but the apothecary in whose house I am lodging now has his scales in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt apple on the top, to represent the great exploit of the hero’s life, and every house has its memento of the man without whom there is no Swiss history. ”

“ High above the little mountain town, on a green pedestal of hill, is the stately, Classical parish church, commanding sweeping views across the wide sub-Alpine vale. Here, in the crowded burial-ground, I searched in vain in the early months of 1914 for memorials of any age—almost every cross or stone had been erected since I had last passed along this valley, in driving in the diligence from Meiringen to Lucerne, not quite a quarter of a century earlier. The old bone-houses stand nowadays mostly empty ”

“ This night, after my first day of rambling about Lucerne, I sat out on my hotel balcony, overlooking the lake and studied the dim moonlit outlines of the peaks crowding about it, the star-shine reflected in the water, the still distances and the moon sinking over the peaks to the west of the418 quaint city. Art has no method of including, or suggesting even, these vast sidereal spaces. The wonder of the night and moonlight is scarcely for the painter’s brush. It belongs in verse, the drama, great literary pageants such as those of Balzac, Turgenieff and Flaubert, but not in pictures. ”

“ VI. The Five Cantons, assembled in diet at Lucerne, appeared full of determination, and war was decided upon. "We will call upon the cities to respect our alliances," said they, "and if they refuse, we will enter the common bailiwicks by force to procure provisions, and we will unite our banners in Zug to attack the enemy." The Waldstettes were not alone. The Nuncio, being solicited by his Lucerne friends, had required that auxiliary troops, paid by the Pope, should be put in motion towards Switzerland, and he announced their near arrival. ”