Rambles and sketches

Contents

Page Biographical Sketch, ...... 6

CHAPTER I. My First and Last Chamois Hunt, . . . . 11

CHAPTER XL Rambles th;rofgh Pajris, ...... 26

chapter hi.

Eambles about Paris, 41

CHAPTER IV.

Eambles about Paris, 57

CHAPTER V.

Eambles about Paris, 71

CHAPTER VI.

Eambles about Paris, 85

CHAPTER VII.

Out or Paris — Oter the Channel to England, . 109

CHAPTER VIII.

Eambles in London, 122

CHAPTER IX.

Eambles about London, 135

CHAPTER X.

Eambles about London, 146

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IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XL

Page

CHAPTER XIL Rambles in England, 165

CHAPTER XIIL

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

Rambxes in Wales, 190

CHAPTER XVI.

Waterloo, 199

CHAPTER XVII.

On the adaption of one^s intellectual efforts to the character of his own mind and the circumstances in which he is placed, 211

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

Association Discussed, 237

CHAPTER XX.

Rome, 241

CHAPTER XXL Easter Sunday in Rome, 258

CHAPTER XXII.

Relics, . 278

CHAPTER XXIII.

Pope Pius IX. and Italy, 291

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OP

J. T. HEADLEY.

The first American ancestor of Mr. Headley was the eldest son of an English baronet, "who came to this country in consequence of a domestic quarrel, and ultimately refused the family estate, which is now held by Sir Francis Headley, the author of a work of some note, on chemistry. Mr. Headley was born on the 30th of December, 1814, at Walton, in New York, where his father was settled as a clergyman. It is a wild and romantic spot on the banks of the Delaware, and his early familiarity with its scenery, doubtless occasioned much of his love of mountain climbing, and indeed, his descriptive power. He commenced his studies with the law in view, but changed his plan; and after graduating at Union College, became a student of theology, at Auburn. He was licensed in New Torkj and a church was offered him in that city, but his health was feeble, and his physician dissuaded him from attempting to preach. Unwilling, however, to abandon his profession without an effort, he took charge of a small church in Stock-

VI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

bridge, in Massachusetts, where he thought he could give himself the most favorable trial, but after two years and a half, broke down completely, and planned a European tour and residence for his recovery. He went to Italy in the summer of 1842, intending to spend the winter there, the summer in Switzerland, and the next winter in the East. The state of his health, however, led to some modification of his design ; he remained in Italy only about eight months, traveled some time in Switzerland, passed through Germany and the Netherlands, went into Belgium, thence to France, then over England and Wales, and finally home, having been absent less than two years. His health being worse than when he went abroad, he gave up all idea of following his profession, and turned his attention to literature.

His first publication was a translation from the German, which appeared anonymously, in 1844. In the following year, he gave to the press. Letters from Italy, and the Alps, and the Rhine ; and in 1846, Napoleon and his Marshals, and The Sacred Mountains.

Mr. Headley is one of the most promising of the youthful writers of this country. He has shown his capacity to write an agreeable book, and to write a popular one. His Letters from Italy is a work upon which a man of taste will be gratified to linger. It possesses the unfatiguing charms of perfect simplicity and truth. It exhibits a thousand lively traits, of an ingenuous nature, which, formed in a sincere and unsophisticated society, and then brought into the midst of the old world, retains all its freshness and distinc-

BIOaRAPHICAL SKETCH. Vii

tlveness, and observes with native intelligence, every thing that is striking in the life, and manners, and scenery around it. There is a graceful frankness pervades the composition, which engages the interest of the reader in the author as well as in the subject. We meet, every where, the evidences of manly feeling, pure sympathies, and an honorable temper. In many of the passages there is a quiet and almost unconscious humor, which reminds us of the delicate raillery of The Spectator. The style is delightfully free from every thing bookish and commonplace ; it is natural, familiar, and idiomatic. It approaches, as a work of that design ought to do, the animation, variety, and ease, of spoken language.

The work called Napoleon and his Marshals, was" written to be popular. The author obviously contemplated nothing but effect. In that point of view, it displays remarkable talent for accomplishing a proposed object. The figures and scenes are delineated with that freedom and breadth of outline, and in that vivid and strongly contrasted style of coloring, which are well calculated to attract and delight the people. If it were regarded as a work written to satisfy his own ideas of excellence, and as the measure of his best abilities, it could not be considered as adding any thing to his reputation. He has taken the subject up with ardor, but with little previous preparation: the work, therefore, indicates imperfect information, immature views of character, and many hasty and unconsidered opinions. The style has the same melo-dramatic exaggeration which the whole design of the

Vlil BIOaHAPIIICAL SKETCH.

work exhibits. Yet unquestionably there is power manifested even in the faults of these brilliant sketches. There is that exuberant copiousness of imagination and passion, which, if it be not admirable in itself, is interesting as the excess of youthful genius. We accept it as a promise, but are not satisfied with it as a production. If it be true, however, as has been stated, that some five thousand copies of this book have been disposed of in the few months that have elapsed since its publication, Mr. Headley has many motives to disregard the warnings which may be mingled with his triumph.

I am unwilling to trust myself in a detailed criticism of Mr. Headley 's latest work — The Sacred Mountains. He may readily be acquitted of intentional irreverence ; but he has displayed a most unfortunate want of judgment, and a singular insensibility to the character of the subject which he undertook to handle. The attempt to approximate and familiarize the incidents of the Deluge, to illustrate the Transfiguration by historical contrasts, and to heighten the agony and awe of the Crucifixion by the extravagancies of rhetoric, has produced an efi'ect that is purely displeasing. As events in the annals of the world, those august occurrences " stand solitary and sublime,'' and are only to be viewed through the passionless ether of the inspired narrative. As mysteries of faith, and symbols of a truth before which our nature bows down, they recede into the infinite distance of sanctity and worship. In a literary point of view, Mr. Headley's design has much the same

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IX

success that would attend an effort to represent the stars of heaven, the horror of an eclipse, or the roseate beauty of an evening sky, by the whiz and crackle of artificial fireworks.

We think so highly of Mr. Headley's natural powers, that we feel a concern in their proper direction and development. The fascination of strong writing, the love of rhetorical effect, have proved the "torva voluptas'' by which American genius has often been betrayed and sacrificed. It is to be hoped that Mr. Headley will recover in time from the dangerous intoxication. He should remember that the spirit of literary art is essentially natural, simple, and calm ; that it is advanced, not by sympathy with the passions of the multitude, but by lonely communion with that high idea of excellence, which is pure, permanent, and sacred; that it dwells not in excitement, and the fervent endeavor after an outward result, but in the quiet yet earnest development of those inward instincts of grace and beauty which are the creative energy of genius. Mr. Headley's first move in literature was a commendable and successful one, and he could not do better for his true fame than to retrace his steps, and recover the line of his earliest efforts.

Besides the works above mentioned, Mr. Headley has published several orations and many able articles in the reviews.

EAMBLES AND SKETCHES.

CHAPTER I.

MY FIRST AND LAST CHAMOIS HUNT.

" Es ist Zeit zu aufstehen — es ist drei viertel auf eins," said a voice in reply to my question, "Wer ist da?" as I was awakened by a low knock at my door. I had just composed myself to sleep for the second time, as this, "It is time to get up, it wants a quarter of one," aroused me. I was in the mountain valley of Grindelwald in the very heart of the Oberland. I had been wandering for weeks amid the glorious scenery of the Alps, which had gone on changing from grand to awful till I had become as familiar with precipices, and gorges, and glaciers, and snow-peaks, and avalanches, as with the meadow-spots and hill-sides of my native valley. I had stood in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and seen the sun go down on his bosom of snow, until from the base to the heavenreaching summit, it was all one transparent rose color, blushing and glowing in bright and wondrous beauty in the evening atmosphere. I had stood and gazed on him and his mountain guard, tinted with the same deep rose-hue, till their glory departed, and Mont Blanc rose, white, and cold, and awful, like a

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miglity model in the pale moonlight. I had wandered over its sea of ice, and climbed its break-neck precipices, and trod the difficult passes that surround it, but never yet had seen a wild chamois on its native hills. I had roamed through the Oberland with no better success. All that I had heard and dreamed of the Alps had been more than realized. Down the bosom of the Jungfrau I had seen the reckless avalanche stream, and listened all night to its thunder crash in the deep gulfs, sending its solemn monotone through the Alpine solitudes, till my heart stood still in my bosom. From the highest peak of the Wettorhorn (peak of tempests) I had seen one of those "thunderbolts of snow" launch itself in terror and might into the very path I was treading — crushed by its own weight into a mere mist that rose up the face of the precipice, like spray from the foot of a waterfall. With its precipices leaning over me, I had walked along with silent lips and subdued feelings, as one who trod near the margin of Jehovah's mantle. I had never been so humbled in the presence of nature before, and a whole world of new emotions and new thoughts had been opened within me. Along the horizon of my memory some of those wondrous peaks were now drawn as distinctly as they lay along the Alpine heavens. Now and then, a sweet pasturage had burst on me from amid this savage scenery, like a sudden smile on the brow of wrath, while the wild strain of the Alp-horn, ringing through the rare atmosphere, and the clear voices of the mountaineers singing their "ranz de v aches y'' as they led their herds along the mountain path to their eagle-nested huts, had turned it all into poetry. If a man wishes to have remembrances that never grow old, and never lose their power to excite the deepest wonder, let him roam through the Oberland.

But I like to have forgotten the hunt I started to describe, in the wonderful scenery its remembrance called' up. Grindelwald is a green valley lying between the passes of the Wengern Alp and the Grand Scheideck, which are between three and four thousand feet above it, and are in turn, surrounded by mountains six or seven thousand feet loftier still, although the valley itself is higher than the tops of the Catskill range. There, rise in solemn majesty, as if to wall in for ever the little valley, the Eigher, or Giant — the Schreckhorn, or terrible peak — the Wetterhorn, or peak of tempests — the Faulhorn, or foul peak — ^the Grand Scheideck, and a little farther away the Jungfrau, or virgin. Thus surrounded, and overlooked, and guarded for ever, the green valley sleeps on as if unconscious of the presence of such awful forms. Here and there, by the stream that wanders through it, and over the green slopes that go modestly up to the mountain on either side, are scattered wooden cottages, as if thrown there by some careless hand, presenting from the heights around, one of the most picturesque views one meets in Switzerland. When the sun has left his last baptism on the high snow-peaks, and deep shadow is settling down on Grindelwald, there is a perfect storm of sound through the valley from the thousands of bells that are attached to the nearly six thousand of cattle the inhabitants keep in the pasturage during the day. The clamor of these bells in a still Alpine valley, made louder by the mountains that shut in the sound, is singularly wild and pleasing.

But the two most remarkable objects in this valley are two enormous glaciers which, born far up amid the mountains — grown there among the gulfs into seas — come streaming down into these green pasturages, plunging their foreheads into the flat ground which lies even lower than the village. Rocks are thrown up, and even small hills, by the enormous pressure of the superincumbent mass. Miles of ice, from sixty to six hundred feet thick, push against the mass in front which meets the valley. One immense rock, which seems a mere projection from the primeval base of the mountains, has resisted the pressure of one of these immense glaciers, which, consequently, has forced itself over, leaving a huge cave from its foot up to where the rock lies imbedded. I went into this cavern, the roof of which was blue as heaven, and polished like a mirror, while a still pool at the bottom acted as a mirror to this mirror, till it stood confined as in a magic circle. These two glaciers push themselves boldly almost into the very heart of the village, chilling its air and acting like huge refrigerators, especially at evening. The day previous to the one appointed for the chamois hunt had been one of extreme toil to me. I had traveled from morning till night, and most of the time on foot in deep snow, although a July sun pretended to be

MY PIRST AND LAST CHAMOIS HUNT. 15

shining overhead. Unable to sleep, I had risen about midnight and opened my window, when I was startled as though I had seen an apparition ; for there before me, and apparently within reach of my hand, and whiter than the moonhght that was poured in a perfect flood upon it, stood one of those immense glaciers. The night had lessened even the little distance that intervened between the hamlet and it during the day, and it looked like some awful white monster — some sudden and terrific creation of the gods, moved there on purpose to congeal men's hearts with terror. But as my eye grew more familiar to it, and I remembered it was but an Alpine glacier, I gazed on it with indescribable feelings. From the contemplation of this white and silent form I had just returned to my couch and to my slumbers, when the exclamation at the head of this sketch awoke me. It was one o'clock in the morning, and I must up if I would fulfill my engagement with the chamois hunters.

In coming down the slope of the Grand Scheideck into the Grindelwald, you see on the opposite mountain a huge mass of rock rising out of the centre of a green pasturage which rises at the base of an immense snow region. Flats and hollows, no matter how high up among the Alps, become pasturages in the summer. The debris of the mountains above, washed down by the torrents, form a slight soil, on which grass will grow, while the snows melted by the summer sun flow down upon it, keeping it constantly moist and green. These pasturagen, though at an elevation of eight thousand feet, will keep green, while the slopes and peaks around are covered with perpetual snow ; and furnish not only grazing for the goats which the mountaineer leads thither with the first break of day, but food for the wild chamois, which descend from the snow fields around at early dawn to take their morning repast. With the first sound of the shepherd's horn winding up the cMs with his flocks, they hie them away again to their inaccessible paths. The eye of the chamois is wonderfully keen, and it is almost impossible to approach him when he is thus feeding. The only way the hunter can get a shot at him is to arrive at the pasturage first, and find some place of concealment near by, in which he can wait his approach. The pile of rocks I alluded to, standing in the midst of the elevated pasturage, furnished such a place of concealment, and it seemed made on purpose for the hunters' benefit.

It is two or three good hours' tramp to reach these rocks from Grindelwald, and it may be imagined with how much enthusiasm I turned out of my bed, where I had obtained scarcely two hours' sleep, on such a cold expedition as this. It is astonishing how difi'erently a man views things at night and in the mornning. The evening before I was all excitement in anticipation of the morning hunt, but now I would willingly have given all I had promised the three hunters who where to accompany me, if I could only have lain still and taken another nap. I looked out of the window, hoping to see some indications of a storm which would furnish an excuse for not turning out in the cold midnight to climb an Alpine mountain. But for once the heavens were provokingly clear, and the stars twinkled over the distant snow summits as if they enjoyed the clear frosty air of that high region ; while the full-orbed moon, just stooping behind the western horizon (which by the way, was much nearer the zenith than the horizon proper), looked the Eigher (a giant) full in his lordly face, till his brow of ice and snow shone like silver in the light. With our rifles in our hands we emerged from the inn and passed through the sleeping hamlet. Not a sound broke the stillness save the monotonous roar of the turbulent little streamlet that went hurrying onward, or now and then the cracking and crushing sound of the ice amid the glaciers.

I had hunted deer in the forest of America, both at evening and morning, but never with teeth chattering so loudly as they did before I had fairly begun to ascend the mountain. Ugh ! ^ I can remember it as if it were but yesterday — how my bones ached and my fingers closed like so many sticks around my rifle. Imagine the eS*ects of two heaps of red-hot coals, about a hundred feet thick and several miles long, lifted to an angle of forty-five degrees, in a small and confined valley, and then by contrast you may get some idea of the cold generated by these two enormous glaciers. Yes, I ^d^j generated ; for I gave up that morning all my old notions about cold being the absence of heat, &c., and became perfectly convinced that heat was the absence of cold^ for if

2* cold did not radiate from those masses of ice, then there is no reliance to be placed on one's sensations.

Now crawling over the rocks, now picking our way over the snow-crust, which bore us or not, just as the whim took it, I at length slipped and fell and rolled over in the snow, by way of a cold bath. This completed my discomfort, and I fairly groaned aloud in vexation at my stupidity in taking this freezing tramp for the sake of a chamois, which, after all, we might not get. But the continous straining effort demanded by the steepness of the ascent finally got my blood in full circulation, and I began to think there might be a worse expedition even than this undertaken by a sensible man.

At length we reached the massive pile of rocks, which covered at least an acre and a half of ground, and began to bestow ourselves away in the most advantageous places of concealment, of which there was an abundance. But a half-hour's sitting on the rocks in this high region, surrounded by everlasting snow, brought my blood from its barely comfortable temperature back to zero again, and I shook like a man in an ague. I knew that a chamois would be perfectly safe at any distance greater than two feet from the muzzle of my rifle, with such shaking limbs ; so I began to leap about, and rub my legs, and stamp, to the no small annoyance of my fellow-hunters, who were afraid the chamois might see me before we should see them. Wearied with waiting for the dawn, I climbed up among the rocks, and, resting myself in a cavity secure* from notice, gazed

MY PIRST AND LAST CHAMOIS HUNT. 19

around me on the wondrous scene. Strangely white forms arose on every side, while deep down in the valley the darkness lay like a cloud. Not a sound broke the deep hush that lay on every thing, and I forgot, for the time, my chilliness, chamois hunters, and all, in the impressive scene that surrounded me. As I sat in mute silence, gazing on the awful peaks that tore up the heavens in every direction, suddenly there came a dull heavy sound like the booming of heavy cannon thi^ough the jarred atmosphere. An avalanche had fallen all alone into some deep abyss, and this was the voice it sent back as it crushed below. As that low thundersound died away over the peaks, a feeling of awe and mystery crept over me, and it seemed dangerous to speak in the presence of such majesty and power.

"Hist! hist!" broke from my companions below; and I turned to where their eyes were straining through the dim twilight. It was a long time before I could discover any thing but snow-fields and precipices ; but at length I discerned several moving black objects, that in the distance appeared like so many insects on the white slope that stretched away towards the summit of the mountain. Bringing my pocket spy-glass to bear upon them, I saw they were chamois moving down towards the pasturage. Now carefully crawling down some ledge, now leaping over a crevice, and jumping a few steps forward, and now gently trotting down the inclined plane of snow, they made their way down the mountain. As the daylight grew broader over the peaks, and they approached nearer, their movements and course became more distinct and evident. They were making for the upper end of the pasturage, and it might be two hours before they would work down to our ambuscade ; indeed, they might get their fill without coming near us at all. I watched them through my spy-glass as they fed without fear on the green herbage, and almost wished they would keep out of the range of our rifles. They were the perfect impersonation of wildness and timidity. The lifting of the head, the springy tread, and the quick movement in every limb, told how little it would take to send them with the speed of the wind to their mountain homes. The chamois is built something like the tame goat, only slighter, while his foreleo-s are lono-er than his hinder ones, so that he slants downward from his head to his tail. His horns are beautiful, being a jet black, and rising in parallel line from his head even to the point where they curve over. They neither incline backward nor outward, but, rising straight out of the head, seem to project forward, while their parallel position almost to the tips of the curvatures gives them a very crank appearance. They are as black as ebony, and some of them bend in as true a curve as if turned by the most skilful hand.

I watched every movement of these wild creatures till my attention was arrested by a more attractive sight. The sun had touched the topmost peaks of the loftiest mountains that hemmed in the sweet valley of Grindelwald, turning the snow into fire, till the lordly summits seemed to waver to and fro in the red light that bathed them. A deep shadow still lay on the vale, through which the cottages of the inhabitants could scarcely be distinguished. At length they grew clearer and clearer in the increasing light, and column after column of smoke rose in the morning air, striving in vain to reach half way up the mountains that stood in silent reverence before the uprising sun. The ruddy light had descended down the Alps, turning them all into a deep rose color. There stood the Giant, robed like an angel ; and there the Schreckhorn, beautiful as the morning ; and there the Faulhorn, with the same glorious appareling on ; and farther away the Jungfrau, looking, indeed, like a virgin, with all her snowy vestments about her, tinged with the hue of the rose. All around and heavenhigh rose these glorious forms, looking as if the Deity had thrown the mantle of his majesty over them on purpose to see how they became their glorious appareKng.

It was a scene of enchantment. At length the mighty orb which had wrought all this magnificent change on the Alpine peaks, rose slowly into view. How majestic he came up from behind that peak, as if conscious of the glory he was shedding on creation. The dim glaciers that before lay in shadow, flashed out like seas of silver — the mountains paled away into their virgin white, and it was broad sunrise in the Alps.

I had forgotten the chamois in this sudden unrolling of so much magnificence before me, and lay absorbed in the overpowing emotions they naturally awakened, when the faint and far-off strain of the shepherd's horn came floating by. The mellow notes lingered among the rocks, and were prolonged in softer cadences through the deep valleys, and finally died away on the distant summits. A shepherd was on his way to this pasturage with his goats. He wears a horn, which he now and then wijids to keep his flock in the path ; and also during the day, when he sees any one of the number straying too near pitfalls and crevices, he blows his horn, and the straggler turns back to the pasturage.

A second low exclamation from my Swiss hunters again drew my attention to the chamois. They also had heard the sound of the horn, and had pricked up their ears, and stood listening. A second strain sounding nearer and clearer, they started for the snow fields. As good luck would have it, they came trotting in a diagonal line across the pasturage which would bring them in close range of our rifies. We lay all prepared, and when they came opposite us, one of the hunters made a low sound which caused them all to stop. At a given signal we all fired. One gave a convulsive spring into the air, ran a few rods, and fell mortally wounded. The rest, winged with fear and terror, made for the heights. I watched their rapid flight for some distance, when I noticed that one began to flag, and finally dropped entirely behind. Poor fellow, thought I to myself, you are struck. His leap grew slower and slower, till at length he stopped, then gave a few faint springs forword, then stopped again, and seemed to look wistfully towards his flying companions that vanished like shadows over the snow fields that sloped up to the inaccessible peaks. I could not but pity him as I saw him limp painfully on. In imagination I could already see the Hfe-blood oozing drop by drop from his side, bring faintness over his heart, and exhaustion to his fleet limbs.

Losing sight of him for the moment, we hastened to the one that lay struggling in his last dying efl'orts upon the grass. I have seen deer die that my bullet had brought down, and as I gazed on the wild yet gentle eye, expressing no anger even in death, but only fear and terror, my heart has smitten me for the deed I had done. The excitement of the chase is one thing — to be in at the death is quite another. But not even the eye of the deer, with its beseeching, imploring look, just before the green film closes over it, is half so pitiful as was the expression of this dying chamois. Such a wild eye I never saw in an animal's head, nor such helpless terror depicted in the look of any creature. It was absolutely distressing, to see such agonizing fear, and I was glad when the knife passed over his throat, and he gave his last struggle. As soon as he was dispatched, we started ofi* after the wounded one. We had no sooner reached the snow than the blood spots told where the sufl*erer had gone. It was easy enough to trace him by the life he left with every step, and we soon came upon him stretched upon his side. As he heard us approach the poor fellow made a desperate efi^ort to rise, but he only half erected himself before he rolled