A Walk in the Grisons; Being a Third Month in Switzerland
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UC-NRLF $B 26"^ "^ftS ^^ i 'I '^ ^fss&Js^^meti. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTH3 BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID A THIRD MONTH IN SWITZERLAND IB'Sr THE S-A^3VnE ^TJTHOE,. T// DUTY and DISCIPLINE of EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. Second Edition. New York : C. Scribner & Co. A WINTER in t/ie UNITED STA TES ; Being Table- Talk collected during a Tour through the Southern the Far and the &-'c. Confederation f West, Rocky Mountains, ' We have here a record of the travels of a sagacious and just-minded man, who saw thoroughly, describes it in a perfectly unprejudiced everything ' manner, and refrains from forcing upon us theories of his own. Pall Mall Gazette. London : John Murray. EGYPT of the PHARAOHS and of the KHEDIVE, Second Edition. ' Mr. Zincke speaks like a man of rare powers of perception, with an intense love of nature in her various moods, and an intellectual sympathy, broad and deep as the truth itself.' Saturday Review. A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND, ' There is quite enough in this little volume to arrest the attention of any- body who cares for an hour's intercourse with the mind of one who has arefully pondered some of the deepest problems which affect the physical well-being of his fellow-creatures.' Spectator, SWISS ALLMENDS,and a WALK to SEE THEM; Being a Second Month in Sxvitzerland, ' Here is a magician who can actually make the beaten tracks of Swiuer- and more interesting than Magdala and Coomassie.' Examiner. SMITH, ELDER, & CO. : 15 Waterloo Place, London. A WALK IN THE GRISONS BEING A THIRD MONTH IN SWITZERLAND BY F. BARHAM ZINCKE VICAR OF WHERSTEAD AND CHAPLAIN TO THE QUEEN Rerum natura iota est nusquam magis quam tn minimis LONDON PLACE SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO 1875 All rights reserved PREFACE. 3XKC The sketch contained in this third volume concludes the triptych of my 'Months in Switzerland.' The first volume was issued in 'ji, the second last spring. A separate volume has been assigned to each sketch. In the original forecast of the work it was anticipated that sufficient range could not be given to it in less than three such sketches. So far, then, as that goes its design is completed. My object has been to present a continuous pic- ture of the scene, endeavouring throughout to give to its human element such prominence as the occasion might admit. That has now been done for some thousand miles. Of this continuous picture about four hundred miles, these being chiefly in the Grisons, are contained in the following pages. In concluding the work I will ask my readers to recall two conditions I propounded for their consider- ation at its commencement, as imposed upon me by iw313303 vi PREFACE, the nature of its subject, for, of course, the method of treatment must always be that which the subject makes appropriate. Of these the first is that fulness and minuteness of detail are here, as in a tableau de genrCy unavoidable and indispensable. The character of the scenes and objects to be described, our famili- arity with them, and the nearness of our point of view are the grounds of this necessity. Fulness and minute- ness of detail are, again, required for the sake of the constantly implied comparison with home scenes, and with home life, which underlies the whole narrative, and is one of the sources of whatever interest it may possess, just as it was at the time with the excursions themselves. To this I will beg permission to add what also I have said elsewhere, that in these volumes it is a part of my aim so to take the reader along with me as to enable him to reconstruct the excursions in his own mind, almost as completely as if he had himself been one of the party. I, therefore, give the narrative of all that was seen, and of all that what was seen brought into my mind, not only from day to day, but almost from hour to hour. I should have failed in this part of my aim, if the reader had come to think that more had been seen than really was seen, or that my opportunities were in any respect greater than they really were, or that anything was PREFACE, vii or more grander, enjoyable, or in any way better, than it really was. If I have succeeded by the method I have in followed presenting a true picture, and if some, whose judgment I am glad to find think favourable, the picture worth looking at, then this part of my purpose is answered. Truth in these matters has a relative as well as an absolute element : the latter, as it belongs to the objects themselves, must needsNbe an unvarying factor, the former, as it is coloured by the observing eye, cannot but be an ever- varying reflection of times and persons. There are many things we of this day do not see as those who were before us saw them and those who are to come ; after us will not see them as we see them. Hence the necessity that each generation should have on all sub- jects, into which the varying element largely enters, its and this to the second con- own books ; brings me dition of which I am desirous of reminding my readers, which is that this work belongs to the category of those in which the writer's own impressions, feelings, and opinions are really the main part of what he has, properly, to offer to his readers. He is not engaged in solving some impersonal problem of science, or in as discussing some question of history, or of criticism, such impersonally as it may be possible to discuss ques- about tions, but in narrating how the natural scene, viii PREFACE. which all will have their own ideas, and how what he saw of everyday life, about which every one will feel differently, impressed himself. In the following pages I have thought it worth while again to invite attention to the industry, thrift, helpfulness, and honesty of the Swiss peasant pro- prietors, who are the basis and main stock of the Swiss social system. Some study of them may be of use to us, because we can in them trace up these solid sterling elements of character to their source in the educative power of property, especially of property in land the of ; and perception the effects in them of this cause may lead us to inquire whether the char- acter of our own agricultural labourers would not be raised, if they, too, were brought under the educative influences of property. Probably nowhere in Europe, it may be in the world, is the class that cultivates the soil so destitute of property as in this country. He amongst our agricultural labourers must be in an ex- ceptionally good position who owns, or ever will own, anything except his clothes, and a few pounds' worth of old furniture. To be in this way cut off from all hope of improving their condition in life, and from the civilizing influences of property, and of the pursuit of property, must, one cannot but think, have deteri- PREFACE, ix orating effects on the class. Should what we see elsewhere confirm us in this supposition, then we may become disposed to inquire whether there are not in this country some hindrances, as one cannot but imagine there must be, to the acquisition of property in land our labourers by agricultural ; and whether the removal of such hindrances, supposing them to have been discovered, would not have a tendency to engender in the minds of this long disinherited class the idea of acquiring, and the desire to acquire, some little property in land, and so to lead on to their recovering the long-lost mental qualities necessary for enabling them to live by the cultivation of small holdings. In the note at the end of this volume I have endeavoured to show how the loss of these mental qualities was brought about in them. I said in the first volume of this work, when speaking of peasant properties, that in these days both the man and the land can be turned to better account. What I meant by this, as I there explained, was that an able and energetic man has now opened to him more promising careers than that of living by the cultivation of three or four acres, and that these same few acres also might possibly now be made to yield a greater amount of produce if cultivated scien- of tifically, and with a liberal application capital. X PREFACE. This be true if had their free may quite ; still, things course, we might come to find that many of our agri- cultural labourers were capable of recovering the quali- fications needed for this kind of life, which, if we may judge from what we see in other countries, is the natural desire and ambition of a it peasantry ; and, too, may be good for a nation so largely commercial and manu- facturing as ourselves to have so sturdy and stable a class among the ingredients of its population. And we may, perhaps, some day come to not dis- similar conclusions with respect to the artizans of our towns. Property, and the pursuit of property, may be found to be a remedy for much that we regret to see in them, and it may be proved to be possible by moral and intellectual training their wages being already in very many cases sufficient for this purpose to qualify a fair proportion of them for attaining to the possession of some little capital in money for in- vestments of one kind or another.