The Complete Writings-2 [24]
of English ale.
There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be English,--people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they first caught sight of the Alps. Believe they don't do it now. She never did; was past the susceptible age when she first came; was tired of the people. Honest? Why, yes, honest, but very fond of money. Fine Swiss wood-carving? Yes. You'll get very sick of it. It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it was not very nice, either,--a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy hair, shaggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table as "water- bewitched"). Why did n't the baroness go back to England, if she was so tired of Switzerland? Well, she was too infirm now; and, besides, she did n't like to trust herself on the railroads. And there were so many new inventions nowadays, of which she read. What was this nitroglycerine, that exploded so dreadfully? No: she thought she should stay where she was.
There is little risk of mistaking the Englishman, with or without his family, who has set out to do Switzerland. He wears a brandy-flask, a field-glass, and a haversack. Whether he has a silk or soft hat, he is certain to wear a veil tied round it. This precaution is adopted when he makes up his mind to come to Switzerland, I think, because he has read that a veil is necessary to protect the eyes from the snow-glare. There is probably not one traveler in a hundred who gets among the ice and snow-fields where he needs a veil or green glasses: but it is well to have it on the hat; it looks adventurous. The veil and the spiked alpenstock are the signs of peril. Everybody--almost everybody--has an alpenstock. It is usually a round pine stick, with an iron spike in one end. That, also, is a sign of peril. We saw a noble young Briton on the steamer the other day, who was got up in the best Alpine manner. He wore a short sack,--in fact, an entire suit of light gray flannel, which closely fitted his lithe form. His shoes were of undressed leather, with large spikes in the soles; and on his white hat he wore a large quantity of gauze, which fell in folds down his neck. I am sorry to say that he had a red face, a shaven chin, and long side-whiskers. He carried a formidable alpenstock; and at the little landing where we first saw him, and afterward on the boat, he leaned on it in a series of the most graceful and daring attitudes that I ever saw the human form assume. Our Oxford student knew the variety, and guessed rightly that he was an army man. He had his face burned at Malta. Had he been over the Gemmi? Or up this or that mountain? asked another English officer. "No, I have not." And it turned out that he had n't been anywhere, and did n't seem likely to do anything but show himself at the frequented valley places. And yet I never saw one whose gallant bearing I so much admired. We saw him afterward at Interlaken, enduring all the hardships of that fashionable place. There was also there another of the same country, got up for the most dangerous Alpine climbing, conspicuous in red woolen stockings that came above his knees. I could not learn that he ever went up anything higher than the top
There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be English,--people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they first caught sight of the Alps. Believe they don't do it now. She never did; was past the susceptible age when she first came; was tired of the people. Honest? Why, yes, honest, but very fond of money. Fine Swiss wood-carving? Yes. You'll get very sick of it. It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it was not very nice, either,--a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy hair, shaggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table as "water- bewitched"). Why did n't the baroness go back to England, if she was so tired of Switzerland? Well, she was too infirm now; and, besides, she did n't like to trust herself on the railroads. And there were so many new inventions nowadays, of which she read. What was this nitroglycerine, that exploded so dreadfully? No: she thought she should stay where she was.
There is little risk of mistaking the Englishman, with or without his family, who has set out to do Switzerland. He wears a brandy-flask, a field-glass, and a haversack. Whether he has a silk or soft hat, he is certain to wear a veil tied round it. This precaution is adopted when he makes up his mind to come to Switzerland, I think, because he has read that a veil is necessary to protect the eyes from the snow-glare. There is probably not one traveler in a hundred who gets among the ice and snow-fields where he needs a veil or green glasses: but it is well to have it on the hat; it looks adventurous. The veil and the spiked alpenstock are the signs of peril. Everybody--almost everybody--has an alpenstock. It is usually a round pine stick, with an iron spike in one end. That, also, is a sign of peril. We saw a noble young Briton on the steamer the other day, who was got up in the best Alpine manner. He wore a short sack,--in fact, an entire suit of light gray flannel, which closely fitted his lithe form. His shoes were of undressed leather, with large spikes in the soles; and on his white hat he wore a large quantity of gauze, which fell in folds down his neck. I am sorry to say that he had a red face, a shaven chin, and long side-whiskers. He carried a formidable alpenstock; and at the little landing where we first saw him, and afterward on the boat, he leaned on it in a series of the most graceful and daring attitudes that I ever saw the human form assume. Our Oxford student knew the variety, and guessed rightly that he was an army man. He had his face burned at Malta. Had he been over the Gemmi? Or up this or that mountain? asked another English officer. "No, I have not." And it turned out that he had n't been anywhere, and did n't seem likely to do anything but show himself at the frequented valley places. And yet I never saw one whose gallant bearing I so much admired. We saw him afterward at Interlaken, enduring all the hardships of that fashionable place. There was also there another of the same country, got up for the most dangerous Alpine climbing, conspicuous in red woolen stockings that came above his knees. I could not learn that he ever went up anything higher than the top