Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

UNDER THE PALMS.

I.

LED on not driven by mere outward force;
Led on-
- not drifting at my own weak will;
For falt'ring footsteps, an appointed course;
For nerveless grasp, a Hand firm-holding still!

Led on past childhood's easy grassy ways,
Past youth's glad scaling of a flower-fringed
steep,

Past plans and failures of less sanguine days, Past graves where I had thought to stay and weep.

Led on but how? I stumble as I go;

[blocks in formation]

Not my wtll, gracious Lord,

Not my blind will and wayward be fulfill'd! I dare not say that bowing to Thy word

All my heart's wishes are subdued and still'd.
My will might crave some boon by Thee denied,

Led on
My trust, a purpose higher than I know;
My hope a goal yet undescried by me.

- but whither? clouds seem all I see: Covet the praise that ministers to pride;

Oh friends! if loved ones love me to the last,
And deem earth sadder for that I am gone,
Think not too much of the dim track I've pass'd,
Think still of me as but led on-led on!

[blocks in formation]

Shrink back from taking up a needed cross,
And shun the furnace to retain the dross.
Not my will, O my Lord,

No

be Thy name adored:

Though too much to the dust affection clings,
And self-wrought chains hold down the spirit's
wings,

Yet out of sorrows past and present fears,
Out of experience bought by loss and tears,
At least the breathing of one prayer I've won —
Not my will, Father, but Thy will be done.

L. C. S.

DEATH OF LAMARTINE. — France has lost a considerable name in Lamartine, who died on Monday, but little more. He was a fair poet of the second order, as good a historian as a man can be who is accurate and inaccurate by chance, and as able a politician as a splendid orator, half Canning, half Shiel, of perfect uprightness, immovable courage, and total incapacity for business could be expected to become. It was his fortune to have one supreme chance, such as only a poet orator at the head of a government could have used, and he used it splendidly. In February, 1847, seventy thousand Parisians, half mad with Socialist hopes, demanded that the Red Flag should beconte the standard of France, and threatened Lamartine with death if he refused. With their muskets pointing at him as he stood unguarded, he refused point-blank, and made his one remembered speech. "The tricolour has made the round of Europe with your liberties and your glory; the red flag has made the tour of the Champ de Mars, through the blood of the people." That "bit of peppered tongue," as Charles Reade has it, soothed the leopard for the hour, and France and England escaped the war of propagandism which would have followed the adoption of the Red symbol. Latterly Lamartine's fancy for living en grand seigneur kept him in pecuniary difficulties, which a State annuity of £1,000 a year but partially relieved, as in France it is considered discreditable not to pay just debts Spectator, 6 March.

From Macmillan's Magazinę. ODDS AND ENDS OF ALPINE LIFE.

BY PROFESSOR TYNDALL.

I.

these four men pronounced flatly against the final precipice. Indeed, they had to be urged by degrees along the sharp and jagged ridge-the most savage, in my opinion, on the whole Matterhorn - which led up to its base. The only man of the four who never uttered the word "impossible," was Johann Joseph Bennen, the bravest of brave guides, who now lies in the graveyard of Ernan, in the higher valley of the Rhône. We were not only defeated by the Matterhorn, but were pelted down its crags by pitiless hail.

SINCE the publication, seven years ago, of a little tract entitled " Mountaineering in 1861," I have contributed hardly anything to the literature of the Alps. I have gone to them every year, and found among them refuge and recovery from the work and the worry, which acts with far deadlier corrosion on the brain than real work, of London. Herein consisted the fascination of the Alps for me: they appealed at once On the day subsequent to this defeat, to thought and feeling, offered their prob- while crossing the Cimes Blanches with lems to the one and their grandeurs to the Bennen, we halted to have a last look at other, while conferring upon the body the the mountain. Previous to quitting Breuil soundness and the purity necessary to the I had proposed to him to make another athealthful exercise of both. There is, how-tempt. He was averse to it, and my habit ever, a natural end to Alpine discipline, was never to persuade him. On the Cimes and henceforth mine will probably be to me a memory. The last piece of work requiring performance on my part was executed last summer; and, unless temptation of unusual strength assail me, this must be my last considerable climb. With soberness of mind, but without any approach to regret, I take my leave of the higher Alpine peaks.

Blanches I turned to him and used these words: "I leave Breuil dissatisfied with what we have done. We ought never to have quitted the Matterhorn without getting upon yonder arête." The ridge to which Bennen's attention was then directed certainly seemed practicable, and it led straight to the summit. There was moisture in the strong man's eyes as he replied, falling into the patois which he employed when his feelings were stirred, "What could I do, sir? not one of them would accompany me." It was the accurate truth.

To reach the point where we halted in 1862 one particularly formidable precipice had to be scaled. It had also to be descended on our return, and to get down would be much more hazardous than to climb. At the top of the precipice we therefore fastened a rope, and by it reached in succession the bottom. This rope had been specially manufactured for the Matterhorn by Mr. Good, of King William Street, City, to whom I had been recommended by his

And this is why it has occurred to me to throw together these odds and ends of Alpine experience into a kind of cairn to the memory of a life well loved. Previous to the year 1860, I knew the Matterhorn as others did, merely as a mountain wonder, for up to that time no human foot had ever been placed on its repellant crags. It is but right to state that the man who first really examined the Matterhorn, in company with a celebrated guide, and who came to the conclusion that it was assailable if not accessible, was Mr. Vaughan Hawkins. It was at his invitation that in August 1860 I took part in the earliest assault upon this formidable peak. We landlord, Appold, the famous mechanician. halted midway, stopped less by difficulty, though that was great, than by want of time. In 1862, I made a more determined attack upon the mountain, but was forced to recoil from its final precipice; for time, the great reducer of Alpine difficulties, was not sufficiently at my command. On that occasion I was accompanied by two Swiss guides and two Italian porters. Three of

In the summer of 1865, the early part of which was particularly favourable to the attempt, one of the Italians (Carrel dit le Bersaglier) who accompanied me in 1862, and who proved himself on that occasion a very able cragsman, again tried his fortune on the Matterhorn. He reached my rope, and found it bleached to snowy whiteness. It had been exposed for three years to all

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »