unrise, and departed
amid jokes and shouting and half-childish play, very unlike the doings
of a similar party in sober England. After that the stillness of
nature descended on the mountain, and the sun shone day after day upon
that great view which seemed created only for ourselves. And what
a view it was! The plain stretching up to the high horizon, where a
misty range of pink cirrus-clouds alone marked the line where earth
ended and the sky began, was islanded with cities and villages
innumerable, basking in the hazy shimmering heat. Milan, seen through
the doctor's telescope, displayed its Duomo perfect as a microscopic
shell, with all its exquisite fretwork, and Napoleon's arch of triumph
surmounted by the four tiny horses, as in a fairy's dream. Far off,
long silver lines marked the lazy course of Po and Ticino, while
little lakes like Varese and the lower end of Maggiore spread
themselves out, connecting the mountains with the plain. Five minutes'
walk from the hotel brought us to a ridge where the precipice fell
suddenly and almost sheer over one arm of Lugano Lake. Sullenly
outstretched asleep it lay beneath us, coloured with the tints of
fluor-spar, or with the changeful green and azure of a peacock's
breast. The depth appeared immeasurable. San Salvadore had receded
into insignificance: the houses and churches and villas of Lugano
bordered the lake-shore with an uneven line of whiteness. And over all
there rested a blue mist of twilight and of haze, contrasting with the
clearness of the peaks above. It was sunset when we first came here;
and, wave beyond wave, the purple Italian hills tossed their crested
summits to the foot of a range of stormy clouds that shrouded the high
Alps. Behind the clouds was sunset, clear and golden; but the
mountains had put on their mantle for the night, and the hem of their
garment was all we were to see. And yet--over the edge of the topmost
ridge of cloud, what was that long hard line of black, too solid and
immovable for cloud, rising into four sharp needles clear and well
defined? Surely it must be the familiar outline of Monte Rosa itself,
the form which every one who loves the Alps knows well by heart, which
picture-lovers know from Ruskin's woodcut in the 'Modern Painters.'
For a moment only the vision stayed: then clouds swept over it again,
and from the place where the empress of the Alps had been, a pillar of
mist shaped like an angel's wing, purple and tipped with gold