What Is Man? and Other Essays
followed riot, insurrection, and the wrack and restitutions of war. It
was bound to come, and it would naturally come in that way. It has been
the manner of reform since the beginning of the world.
SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY
Interlaken, Switzerland, 1891.
It is a good many years since I was in Switzerland last. In that remote
time there was only one ladder railway in the country. That state of
things is all changed. There isn’t a mountain in Switzerland now that
hasn’t a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders; indeed,
some mountains are latticed with them, and two years hence all will be.
In that day the peasant of the high altitudes will have to carry a
lantern when he goes visiting in the night to keep from stumbling over
railroads that have been built since his last round. And also in that
day, if there shall remain a high-altitude peasant whose potato-patch
hasn’t a railroad through it, it will make him as conspicuous as
William Tell.
However, there are only two best ways to travel through Switzerland.
The first best is afoot. The second best is by open two-horse carriage.
One can come from Lucerne to Interlaken over the Brunig by ladder
railroad in an hour or so now, but you can glide smoothly in a carriage
in ten, and have two hours for luncheon at noon—for luncheon, not for
rest. There is no fatigue connected with the trip. One arrives fresh in
spirit and in person in the evening—no fret in his heart, no grime on
his face, no grit in his hair, not a cinder in his eye. This is the
right condition of mind and body, the right and due preparation for the
solemn event which closed the day—stepping with metaphorically
uncovered head into the presence of the most impressive mountain mass
that the globe can show—the Jungfrau. The stranger’s first feeling,
when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped
in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if
heaven’s gates had swung open and exposed the throne.
It is peaceful here and pleasant at Interlaken. Nothing going on—at
least nothing but brilliant life-giving sunshine. There are floods and
floods of that. One may properly speak of it as “going on,” for it is
full of the suggestion of activity; the light pours down with energy,
with visible enthusiasm. This is a good atmosphere to be in, morally as
well as physically. After trying the political atmosphere of the
neighboring monarchies, it is healing and refreshing to breathe in air
that has known no taint of slavery for six hundred years, and to come
among a people whose political history is great and fine, and worthy to
be taught in all schools and studied by all races and peoples. For the
struggle here throughout the centuries has not been in the interest of
any private family, or any church, but in the interest of the whole
body of the nation, and for shelter and protection of all forms of
belief. This fact is colossal. If one would realize how colossal it is,
and of what dignity and majesty, let him contrast it with the purposes
and objects of the Crusades, the siege of York, the War of the Roses,
and other historic comedies of that sort and size.
Last week I was beating around the Lake of Four Cantons, and I saw
Rutli and Altorf. Rutli is a remote little patch of a meadow, but I do
not know how any piece of ground could be holier or better worth
crossing oceans and continents to see, since it was there that the
great trinity of Switzerland joined hands six centuries ago and swore
the oath which set their enslaved and insulted country forever free;
and Altorf is also honorable ground and worshipful, since it was there
that William, surnamed Tell (which interpreted means “The foolish
talker”—that is to say, the too-daring talker), refused to bow to
Gessler’s hat. Of late years the prying student of history has been
delighting himself beyond measure over a wonderful find which he has
made—to wit, that Tell did not shoot the apple from his son’s head. To
hear the students jubilate, one would suppose that the question of
whether Tell shot the apple or didn’t was an important matter; whereas
it ranks in importance exactly with the question of whether Washington
chopped down the cherry-tree or didn’t. The deeds of Washington, the
patriot, are the essential thing; the cherry-tree incident is of no
consequence. To prove that Tell did shoot the apple from his son’s head
would merely prove that he had better nerve than most men and was as
skillful with a bow as a million others who preceded and followed him,
but not one whit more so. But Tell was more and better than a mere
marksman, more and better than a mere cool head; he was a type; he
stands for Swiss patriotism; in his person was represented a whole
people; his spirit was their spirit—the spirit which would bow to none
but God, the spirit which said this in words and confirmed it with
deeds. There have always been Tells in Switzerland—people who would not
bow. There was a sufficiency of them at Rutli; there were plenty of
them at Murten; plenty at Grandson; there are plenty today. And the
first of them all—the very first, earliest banner-bearer of human
freedom in this world—was not a man, but a woman—Stauffacher’s wife.
There she looms dim and great, through the haze of the centuries,
delivering into her husband’s ear that gospel of revolt which was to
bear fruit in the conspiracy of Rutli and the birth of the first free
government the world had ever seen.
From this Victoria Hotel one looks straight across a flat of trifling
width to a lofty mountain barrier, which has a gateway in it shaped
like an inverted pyramid. Beyond this gateway arises the vast bulk of
the Jungfrau, a spotless mass of gleaming snow, into the sky. The
gateway, in the dark-colored barrier, makes a strong frame for the
great picture. The somber frame and the glowing snow-pile are
startlingly contrasted. It is this frame which concentrates and
emphasizes the glory of the Jungfrau and makes it the most engaging and
beguiling and fascinating spectacle that exists on the earth. There are
many mountains of snow that are as lofty as the Jungfrau and as nobly
proportioned, but they lack the frame. They stand at large; they are
intruded upon and elbowed by neighboring domes and summits, and their
grandeur is diminished and fails of effect.
It is a good name, Jungfrau—Virgin. Nothing could be whiter; nothing
could be purer; nothing could be saintlier of aspect. At six yesterday
evening the great intervening barrier seen through a faint bluish haze
seemed made of air and substanceless, so soft and rich it was, so
shimmering where the wandering lights touched it and so dim where the
shadows lay. Apparently it was a dream stuff, a work of the
imagination, nothing real about it. The tint was green, slightly
varying shades of it, but mainly very dark. The sun was down—as far as
that barrier was concerned, but not for the Jungfrau, towering into the
heavens beyond the gateway. She was a roaring conflagration of blinding
white.
It is said the Fridolin (the old Fridolin), a new saint, but formerly a
missionary, gave the mountain its gracious name. He was an Irishman,
son of an Irish king—there were thirty thousand kings reigning in
County Cork alone in his time, fifteen hundred years ago. It got so
that they could not make a living, there was so much competition and
wages got cut so. Some of them were out of work months at a time, with
wife and little children to feed, and not a crust in the place. At last
a particularly severe winter fell upon the country, and hundreds of
them were reduced to mendicancy and were to be seen day after day in
the bitterest weather, standing barefoot in the snow, holding out their
crowns for alms. Indeed, they would have been obliged to emigrate or
starve but for a fortunate idea of Prince Fridolin’s, who started a
labor-union, the first one in history, and got the great bulk of them
to join it. He thus won the general gratitude, and they wanted to make
him emperor—emperor over them all—emperor of County Cork, but he said,
No, walking delegate was good enough for him. For behold! he was modest
beyond his years, and keen as a whip. To this day in Germany and
Switzerland, where St. Fridolin is revered and honored, the peasantry
speak of him affectionately as the first walking delegate.
The first walk he took was into France and Germany, missionarying—for
missionarying was a better thing in those days than it is in ours. All
you had to do was to cure the head savage’s sick daughter by a
“miracle”—a miracle like the miracle of Lourdes in our day, for
instance—and immediately that head savage was your convert, and filled
to the eyes with a new convert’s enthusiasm. You could sit down and
make yourself easy, now. He would take an ax and convert the rest of
the nation himself. Charlemagne was that kind of a walking delegate.
Yes, there were great missionaries in those days, for the methods were
sure and the rewards great. We have no such missionaries now, and no
such methods.
But to continue the history of the first walking delegate, if you are
interested. I am interested myself because I have seen his relics in
Sackingen, and also the very spot where he worked his great miracle—the
one which won him his sainthood in the papal court a few centuries
later. To have seen these things makes me feel very near to him, almost
like a member of the family, in fact. While wandering about the
Continent he arrived at the spot on the Rhine which is now occupied by
Sackingen, and proposed to settle there, but the people warned him off.
He appealed to the king of the Franks, who made him a present of the
whole region, people and all. He built a great cloister there for women
and proceeded to teach in it and accumulate more land. There were two
wealthy brothers in the neighborhood, Urso and Landulph. Urso died and
Fridolin claimed his estates. Landulph asked for documents and papers.
Fridolin had none to show. He said the bequest had been made to him by
word of mouth. Landulph suggested that he produce a witness and said it
in a way which he thought was very witty, very sarcastic. This shows
that he did not know the walking delegate. Fridolin was not disturbed.
He said:
“Appoint your court. I will bring a witness.”
The court thus created consisted of fifteen counts and barons. A day
was appointed for the trial of the case. On that day the judges took
their seats in state, and proclamation was made that the court was
ready for business. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed,
and yet no Fridolin appeared. Landulph rose, and was in the act of
claiming judgment by default when a strange clacking sound was heard
coming up the stairs. In another moment Fridolin entered at the door
and came walking in a deep hush down the middle aisle, with a tall
skeleton stalking in his rear.
Amazement and terror sat upon every countenance, for everybody
suspected that the skeleton was Urso’s. It stopped before the chief
judge and raised its bony arm aloft and began to speak, while all the
assembly shuddered, for they could see the words leak out between its
ribs. It said:
“Brother, why dost thou disturb my blessed rest and withhold by robbery
the gift which I gave thee for the honor of God?”
It seems a strange thing and most irregular, but the verdict was
actually given against Landulph on the testimony of this wandering
rack-heap of unidentified bones. In our day a skeleton would not be
allowed to testify at all, for a skeleton has no moral responsibility,
and its word could not be believed on oath, and this was probably one
of them. Most skeletons are not to be believed on oath, and this was
probably one of them. However, the incident is valuable as preserving