Alpine valley

“ 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. ”

“ These loose blocks already occur in the alpine valleys, which open into the great valley, between the Alps and the Jura. They are found more abundantly in the wide parts of valleys immediately below the narrow or contracted passes, and few occur in the narrow, steep, and rocky parts of the valleys. ”

“ Between the lofty peaks which rise skyward into the very vault of heaven, as it seems to the wayfarer at their feet, stretch lovely, winding Alpine valleys, often well-wooded and with turf of a most delightful greenness strewn with myriads of Alpine blossoms. Through valleys sweet with the odours of pinewoods and flowers run rushing torrents or more quietly flowing streams, which often have their origin in tiny, dark-blue Alpine lakes set amid environing pine forests, in whose tranquil waters are reflected the towering rocks and secluded woods which surround them. ”

“ Almost all days in the subalpine valleys of North Italy have a beauty with them of some kind or another, but none are more lovely than a quiet gray day just at the beginning of autumn, when the clouds are drawing lazily and in the softest fleeces over the pine forests high up on the mountain sides. ”

“ But in views from the alpine level there is a greater simplicity and a no less effective moderation. The mountains in sight are few, and of them one is sure to [246] be most prominently placed, one will be central if not unique; and that mountain, in the typical view from an alp, will be seen from base to summit, not merely its superstructure of rock and snow, but its wide foundation also, reaching down into the depths of the valley and spreading broadly with all needful amplitude. ”

“ If you are fortunate, and have one of the bright, soft afternoons that sometimes show the Alps in their full beauty, as you descend the slope of the Jura, from which you command the whole panorama of the opposite range, you may see, as the day dies, the last shadow pass with strange rapidity from peak to peak of the Alpine summits. ”

“ While we were carrying out the idea, by making chambers for the Fauns and Nymphs in the basement story of the precipice, the path wound around the shoulder of the mountain, and the glen spread away before us, branching up into loftier ranges, disclosing through its gateway of cliffs, rising out of the steeps of pine forest, a sublime vista of blue mountain peaks, climbing to the topmost snows. It was a magnificent Alpine landscape, more glowing and rich than Switzerland, yet equalling it in all the loftier characteristics of mountain scenery. ”

“ They resist our best climbing qualifications and are as inaccessible as the mists above our highest tops. And we prefer, naturally, our talking companions, those who shrink not from the task of ready interpretation.
“The Alps form a book of nature as wide and mysterious as Life,” says Frederic Harrison in his Alpine Jubilee, in one of those clear-cut and well-measured passages of mountain homage, which are balm to the tormented hearts of those who feel themselves afloat on the clouds of mystery. “To know, to feel, to understand the Alps is to know, to feel, to understand Humanity.” ”

“ As I stroll about these hills, more leisurely, more thoughtfully than I used to do of old in my hot mountaineering days, I have tried to think out what it is that makes the Alpine landscape so marvelous a tonic to the spirit—what is the special charm of it to those who have once felt all its inexhaustible magic. ”

“ The countless mountain lakes, the wild fiords—from whose deep recesses one but rarely sees the sun—the shady solitudes, so painfully still that one shudders with a chilling sense of loneliness, and the easily-approached glaciers and waterfalls—many with a plunge of over a thousand feet, that amaze the Alpine traveller—thrill and fill the beholder with astonishment. ”

“ Thus for long miles, hour after hour, and, in large mountain regions, day after day, the character of the scenery slowly changes. The mountains grow bigger; vegetation varies with level and aspect; [200] Nature grows more austere, and therewith more magnificent. You traverse some vast defile, like the gorge of Gondo perhaps, where road and river find passage beneath opposite cliffs, water-worn and of imposing height. You enter secluded basins, where the valley widens to close again; you pass round the margin of lakes that hold the hill-tops, as it were, in their depths. ”

“ You still proceed, and the path winds round another mountain height, and a fresh view opens before you; another extent of valley with wood-crowned heights, the feet of which are scattered with little cottages. In the hollows of the valleys roars the river; the clouds slowly roll along, dividing themselves amongst the immense rocky heights. In whatever direction you turn your sight, you behold Alps, valleys, deep woods, soft, waving pasture meadows, dark rifts of the mountain, whence, as you can see, flow streams in the spring season. ”

“ To be sure, the mountains are not quite so high as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn (there are not so many snow-clad peaks and glaciers) , but they are high enough; there are many that pierce the clouds, and the roads wind amid perpetual wildness, yet not without beauty also, for at the foot of these savage mountains lie the loveliest green valleys, which are inhabited by a simple, brave people, who have often defended their Alpine passes with such valor as has made them as full of historical interest as they are of natural grandeur. ”

“ For those with means and time sufficient to indulge their love of climbing among the great Alps, the old snow ways of the mountains still remain sufficient in number and in sensation. But for the ever-increasing number of men whom circumstances limited to the lesser hills of our own islands or to the lower alpine ranges, the grass and snow ways began to prove too unexciting as their novelty became exhausted, and the rock peaks and the sheer rock faces of the Lake Fells, Skye or the Dolomites offered a new temptation. ”

“ ALPINE HERDSMEN.
“This same lover of mountains finds even the snow different. On the Jura it falls on dark-green firs and pines and, mingling with the dreary foliage, gives forth only a sad and cautious half-smile. But in the Alps the white snow makes the mountains joyous. He compares it to a virginal mantle, embroidered with green and azure. When the morning has, for them, brought on the early day, they seem to sing gaily their reveille and their youth; a hymn of light floats high in the air above their heads and finds an echo of joy and of love in the hearts of mortals. ”

“ The works of our living poets abound with sketches of mountain scenery the precision of which may satisfy even a literal-minded enthusiast. In the exquisite Alpine idyll in the 'Princess' we have brought before us one after another the scenes of the Bernese Oberland; Grindelwald with its firths of ice, Lauterbrunnen with its monstrous ledges and 'thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,' or the gentler beauties of the vale of Frutigen and the Lake of Brienz. ”

“ In common talk, indeed, we are accustomed to attribute fancifully to this mountain masculine ruggedness, to that feminine grace, to another qualities of terror. Some mountains attract to themselves a kind of human affection; others repel; yet others bore, or, on the contrary, interest without charming. In the present chapter, therefore, I intend to discuss the characters of mountains, especially of the great Alpine peaks, from this point of view, considering so far as space permits the characters and dispositions of all sorts and conditions of Alps. ”

“ Is mind powerless where mere reflection can succeed not once but repeatedly? Can it be impossible to put on canvas subjects which readily adapt themselves to modest-sized photographs? So long as form as well as colour is a source of pleasure, the Alps will offer a store of the most valuable material for art.
Nevertheless, a certain amount of truth underlies all the current criticisms on Alpine scenery. ”

“ And now we are present at the last struggle where, under a pall of cloud through which the parent peaks shine down a far-off farewell, the glacier makes its fatal plunge into the valley, for it a valley of death, and we see its end amid the earth and rock-heaps of the terminal moraine. But from under the muddy ruin springs out of a 'dusky door' a new and fuller life, and the mountain stream dashes off on its happy course through the new world of the fields and orchards. ”

“ Though not high, as heights go in the European Alps or in the Himalaya, they are imposing mountains. It is only within comparatively recent years that passes have been discovered between the lakes and the sounds; and although these passes do not lead the traveller beyond the sub-Alpine heights, they take him through scenery that is no less remarkable for its beauty than for its grandeur—a fitting introduction to those greater marvels in the heart of the Southern Alps. ”

“ Be that as it may; be fog, wind, and cloud and driving rain and sleet a luxury in which we should revel—or not; of all places in the world in bad weather, the Alps at springtide and at the altitude at which we are now studying them, are probably among the most interesting and absorbing. Let an everyday world, or as much of it as can, come and judge for itself. ”

“ The exceptional wellbeing and intelligence of the people is no doubt to some extent referable to the physical features of their country. The Northern Alps seem to have been more or less laid out according to rule; valley is severed from valley by lofty and abrupt ridges; thus isolation and seclusion are enforced on the mountain communities. Here one can imagine that nature first planned a rolling hill-country and put in the mountains as an afterthought, planting them here and there at haphazard in isolated masses. ”

“ It divides the mountain-lover from the common peak peak-hunter. It is the quality that continues growing longest, whose exercise is never wearisome, whose reward is always increasing. To be able to discriminate between the qualities of different Alpine regions and to appreciate all their varied merits is to know the Alps. ”

“ Literally speaking, "alps" are high pastures where cattle go to graze in summer-time. We here use the name with no such meaning, but to designate the mountains in general. The Alps, par excellence, to the normal man are the great groups of snowy peaks in the heart of the Alpine area. Let us in the first place confine our attention to them. In popular estimation these groups are the following, the Dauphiny, Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, Oberland, and Engadine masses. In the second rank come others we will refer to later. ”

“ The laws of perspective bring then those peaks nearer the perpendicular. By an optical delusion, which is full of scenic effect, they tower aloft. The designers of Alpine models run after poetical and picturesque effects. They very naturally do not wish to show you in plaster Alps far less formidable than those which agreeably overawe you in nature. They add from 10 to 20 per cent. to the angles of declivity, deepen the valleys and pull out the mountain tops like putty. They thus show you the Alps in your own natural perspective, as a painter does on his canvas. ”

“ It is the great good fortune of the Alps, beyond all other snowy ranges, to possess both the region of utterly untamed nature above, and a larger area of humanly modified land below. A normal Alpine view includes parts of both regions. Looking up from beneath, you have the gardened world for [273] foreground and the wild world for distance. Looking down from above the reverse is the case. The contrast is always charming. What more beautiful setting for a snow mountain can be conceived than that which surrounds the Jungfrau as beheld from near Interlaken? ”

“ The scenery now became more wild than ever. The valley was narrow, and on each side of it were to be seen lofty precipices and vast slopes of mountain land—some smooth and green, and covered, though very steep, with flocks and herds, and others feathered with dark evergreen forests, or covered with ragged rocks, or pierced with frightful chasms. Here and there a zigzag path was seen leading from hamlet to hamlet or from peak to peak up the mountain, with peasants ascending or descending by them and bearing burdens of every form and variety on their backs. ”

“ The grandeur and sublimity of the Alpine scene is to some extent compensated for by the broader expanse of undulating waters, the larger sweep of productive valleys and verdant slopes, “set with the homes of men,” breathing the air of freedom, whose heritage is liberty under law. ”

“ I have been in Alpine villages where, at the end of every squalid alley, there towered up a great, pure, silent, white peak. That is what our lives may be; however noisome, crowded, petty the little lane in which we live, the Alp is at the end of it there, if we only choose to lift our eyes and look. ”

“ It would be impossible within our limits to furnish even a moiety of the details and evidences by which the intricate structure of the Alps has been so successfully unraveled, and the arrangement of nature in the due order of superposition so persistently maintained. We shall simply advert to the equivalents of the English strata which have been satisfactorily ascertained, and shall then consider some of the more interesting phenomena connected with the age, elevation, erratic blocks, and glaciers of this Alpine country. ”

“ On the plain all is monotony. Summer and winter, the same landmarks, the same sky, the same sounds, surround the man. But around the dweller in the mountains,—and especially such mountains as these,—all is variety and grandeur. Now the Alps are seen with their sunlight summits and their shadowless sides; anon they veil their mighty forms in clouds and tempests. The living machinery of the mist, too, is continually varying the landscape, now engulphing valleys, now blotting out crags and mountain peaks, and suspending before the eye a cold and cheerless curtain of vapour ”