The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol 2

硲The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol 2

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Vol. 2, by Maria Edgeworth #8 in our series by Maria Edgeworth
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Title: The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2
Author: Maria Edgeworth
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9095] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 4, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARIA EDGEWORTH ***

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THE
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
MARIA EDGEWORTH
Edited By
AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE
VOL. II

MARIA EDGEWORTH
MARIA to MISS WALLER.
COPPET, _Sept. 1, 1820_.
I am sure that you have heard of us, and of all we have done and seen from Edgeworthstown as far as Berne: from thence we went to Thun: there we took _char-à-bancs_, little low carriages, like half an Irish jaunting car, with four wheels, and a square tarpaulin awning over our heads. Jolting along on these vehicles, which would go over a house, I am sure, without being overturned or without being surprised, we went--the Swiss postillion jolting along at the same round rate up and down, without ever looking back to see whether the carriages and passengers follow, yet now and then turning to point to mountains, glaciers, and cascades. The valley of Lauterbrunn is beautiful; a clear, rushing cascady stream rushes through it: fine chestnuts, walnuts, and sycamores scattered about, the verdure on the mountains between the woods fresh and bright. Pointed mountains covered with snow in the midst of every sign of flowery summer strike us with a sense of the sublime which never grows familiar. The height of the Staubach waterfall, which we saw early in the morning, astonished my mind, I think, more than my eyes, looking more like thin vapour than water--more like strings of water; and I own I was disappointed, after all I had heard of it.
We went on to the valley of Grindelwald, where we saw, as we thought two fields off, a glacier to which we wished to go; and accordingly we left the _char-à-bancs_, and walked down the sloping field, expecting to reach it in a few minutes, but we found it a long walk--about two miles. To this sort of deception about distances we are continually subject, from the clearness of the air, and from the unusual size of the objects, for which we have no points of comparison, and no previous habits of estimating. We were repaid for our walk, however, when we came to the source of the Lutzen, which springs under an arch of ice in the glacier. The river runs clear and sparkling through the valley, while over the arch rests a mountain of ice, and beside it a valley of ice; not smooth or uniform, but in pyramids, and arches, and blocks of immense size, and between them clefts and ravines. The sight and the sound of the waters rushing, and the solemn immovability of the ice, formed a sublime contrast.
On the grass at the very foot of this glacier were some of the most delicious wood-strawberries I ever tasted.
At Interlaken we met Sneyd [Footnote: Her half-brother, son of the third Mrs. Edgeworth, and his wife Henrica Broadhurst.] and Henrica in a very pleasant situation in that most beautiful country. We parted on the banks of the lake of Brienz. On this lake we had an hour's delightful sailing, and put into a little bay and climbed up a mountain to see the cascade of the Giesbach, by far the most beautiful I ever beheld, and beyond all of which painting or poetry had ever given me any idea. Indeed it is particularly difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to give a representation of cascades which depend for effect upon the height from which they fall, the rush of motion, the sparkling and foam of the water in motion, and the magnitude of the surrounding objects.
After passing the lake of Brienz, we