The Playground of Europe

Front matter

THE PLAYGROUND OF EUROPE. LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISTVOOIU5 AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET ASCENT OF THE ROTHHORN, THE PLAYGROUND OF EUROPE. BY LESLIE STEPHEN, ATE PRESIDENT OF THE ALPINE CLUB. VALLEY OF LAUTERBRUNNEN. ' We complain of the mountains as rubbish, as not only disfiguring the face of the earth, but also to us useless and inconvenient; and yet, without these, neither rivers nor fountains nor the weather for producing and ripening fruits could regularly be produced.' Abp. King On the Origin of Evil. LONDON : LONGMANS, G-KEEN, AND CO. 1871. TO MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-TRAVELLERS OF THE ALPINE CLUB.

Preface

. This volume is a collection, with certain additions and alterations, of articles which have appeared in ' Fraser's Magazine,' in the publications of the Alpine Club, and in the ' Cornhill Magazine.' I call attention to the alterations and additions, not because I imagine that any large number of Alpine enthusiasts have learnt my writings by heart, or will resent changes as I have some times resented a fresh touch in one of Mr. Tennyson's familiar poems, but by way of making one of those apolo gies which we all know to be useless, and which yet have an inexpressible attraction for a writer. One does not make a bad book good by giving notice of its faults, nor can one hope to soften the inexorable ferocity of critics. And yet I am possessed with a nervous feeling, like that of a gentleman entering an evening party with a consciousness that his neckcloth is badly tied, and endeavouring by an utterly futile contortion to put it right at the last moment. With my eyes open

PREFACE.

. to the weakness of my conduct, I do what I have often condemned in others, and make a statement which I might more wisely leave to my enemies. The case, then, is this. I have endeavoured to remove from these papers one glaring fault. Most of them were originally written for a small and very friendly audience ; and whilst the pen was in my hand, I had a vision before my eyes of a few companions sitting at the door of some Swiss inn, smoking the pipe of peace after a hard day's walk, and talking what everybody talks, from archbishops to navvies ; that is to say, what is ordinarily called ' shop.' I was simply prolonging pleasant chats about guides and snow-slopes and aretes, and ropes and crevasses, which had a strange interest at the time, and were delightful even in the recollection. As some often-cited painter used to work at his pic tures in a court dress by way of maintaining a dignified frame of mind, I could hardly scribble my undignified narratives in anything but a rusty old shooting-coat, perfumed with tobacco, and still marked by the rope that had often been fastened round it.

It was perhaps excusable that there should intrude into my pao-es a certain quantity of slang, and a large allowance of exceedingly bad jokes. On presenting myself to a larger public, I have endeavoured to perform the pain ful operation of self-mutilation. The slang, I would

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IX fain hope, has been ruthlessly excised ; but the pain of dismissing a poor old joke, at which its author has smiled with parental affection, and which his friends have condescended to accept as more or less facetious, inflicts so cruel a pang, that I fear some intolerable specimens may remain. Moreover one cannot alter the tone of a narrative, though one may remove its most payable blemishes ; and I fear that there will be in the following chapters a certain suspicious flavour as of conversation not quite fitted for polite society, which no use of literary disinfectants has quite removed. If so, I must try to console myself for the blame which I shall incur. The book is offered chiefly to those fellow lunatics — if they will forgive the expression — who love the Alps too well not to pardon something to the harmless monomaniac who shares their passion.

And I would fain hope that with the indecorum there will remain some sense of the pleasure with which these pages were first written. The way to make others feel is to feel oneself; and I will make (shall I call it a boast or a confession?) which is perhaps less prudent than the apology. I not only wrote these pages with pleasure, but I have read them over again with some touch of my original feeling. Even benevolent critics may ascribe that pleasure, not to any merit in the writing, but to the associations con-

PREFACE.

. X nected with tbe narratives. Somehow, in reading, London fogs have rolled away, and I have caught glimpses of the ever-glorious Alps ; above the chimney pots over the way I have seen the solemn cliff's of the Schreckhorn and the Jungfrau. If my pages could summon up the same visions to other people that they have revealed to me, they would indeed be worth reading. As it is, they may perhaps suggest some faint shadows of those visions to fellow-labourers in the same field. CONTENTS. PACK

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vii

1. . . The Baths or Santa Cataeina 16o 2. . . The Peaks of Pkimieeo ....... 198 3. . . The Eastern Caepathians 228