Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER XIII.

_My Dear Lucy_:--I am writ­ing this in my room high up on the hill­side of Lucerne, (Luzern) pro­nounced as if there were a “t” be­fore the “z.” The day is clos­ing. The light is yet bright on the moun­tains, but the lake lies in shad­ows. The lamps are be­ing light­ed down be­low in the town and along the prom­enade. I hear faint­ly the ar­rival of the steam­er at the pier.

But let me be­gin at the be­gin­ning, and tell you what I have seen and done up to the present. This telling is a poor sub­sti­tute for the re­al­ity, I as­sure you; but as you have nev­er been in Switzer­land, you might be in­ter­est­ed in the sights here--through my eyes! Let me say now, be­fore I for­get, that at ev­ery point of beau­ty and in­ter­est, I said in my heart, “O that Lucy could be here to en­joy this!” It re­al­ly seemed self­ish in me to be alone. And then, you know, the plea­sure of sight see­ing is ma­te­ri­al­ly en­hanced when one has a sym­pa­thet­ic com­pan­ion to whom one may ex­claim: “Isn't that grand!”

We en­tered Switzer­land at Basel, then jour­neyed on to Zurich. This is Switzer­land's largest city, and in my opin­ion, it is one of the most beau­ti­ful large cities I have ev­er seen. Of course, I hunt­ed up the Church head­quar­ters, where I was for­tu­nate to meet a friend I had known in Salt Lake. He kind­ly gave me the in­for­ma­tion I de­sired about the city and even took a few hours off du­ty to ac­com­pa­ny me to points of in­ter­est.

That evening we went to the Opera house, where Faust was be­ing played. I had a great de­sire to see Faust in the orig­inal, and though my Ger­man is not up to Goethe's stan­dard, I could fol­low the plot some­what, and I was ea­ger­ly watch­ing for Mar­garet to make her ap­pear­ance on the stage. Af­ter a long evening, the cur­tain went down, and all the peo­ple got up and left--yet no Mar­garet had ap­peared. I was puz­zled; but my friend ex­plained that the play was on­ly half over. If I de­sired to see the rest, I would have to come back the fol­low­ing evening. What do you think of that? Well, I didn't go back--I went to Lucerne, next morn­ing.

I want­ed to see the Alps, of course, and we got a dis­tant view on­ly of them from Zurich. Here, at Lucerne, we have them in all their grand beau­ty.

I don't mind ad­mit­ting to you that my purse would not al­low my stop­ping longer at the Schweiz­er­hof, than to mere­ly take a good look at the ex­te­ri­or. I had with me the Lucerne el­ders' ad­dress, and eas­ily found them. They di­rect­ed me to a friend who had cheap rooms, and it is here I am writ­ing to you. The view is just as fine from my win­dow as from the big ho­tel--nay, fin­er, for I am high­er up; and af­ter all, Lucy, the five francs' out-​look on a beau­ti­ful world is en­joyed quite as much as if it cost fif­teen. I can see the cap or the col­lar of Mt. Pi­la­tus bet­ter per­haps than the fat, cross, silk-​clad la­dy I saw on the boat yes­ter­day, can see them. (By “cap” is meant a cloud rest­ing on top, by “col­lar” the cloud en­cir­cling Pi­la­tus' head.)

This brings me to my trip on Lake Lucerne day be­fore yes­ter­day. We start­ed ear­ly. The tourist sea­son has hard­ly be­gun yet, so we were not crowd­ed. There was rain threat­en­ing. The moun­tain tops were hid­den by clouds, and the prospect was not as­sur­ing. How­ev­er, by the time we land­ed at Brun­nen, the clouds had lift­ed, the sun came out, and the day be­came pleas­ant­ly warm. From Brun­nen, it was our plan to walk along the Ax­en­strasse, to Flue­len, a dis­tance of five or six miles. There were three of us, with an el­der for guide. I wish you could have spent that af­ter­noon with us--with me, strolling along that won­der­ful road, cut out of the moun­tain side bor­der­ing the lake. The post cards I am en­clos­ing will give you an idea of the scenery, and I as­sure you the blue­ness of the lake is not over­done in the pic­ture.

The road leads along gen­tly slop­ing hill-​sides, cov­ered with farms, then it pierces the sheer rock, then again bor­ders the cliff, fifty or one hun­dred feet from the lake be­low. The trees are in full leaf and some are in bloom. The grass is high where we walked, but up to­wards the tops of the moun­tains, the snow still lies. One of the strange sights is to see large, splen­did ho­tels perched in some cran­ny away up near the sum­mit of the peaks. Cog rail­ways now take the tourists up some of the moun­tains.

The re­gion around Lake Lucerne is his­toric, I am told. Here be­gan the Swiss strug­gle for lib­er­ty which we read about. The scene of William Tell's ex­ploits are laid here, and we are shown on the shore of the lake, Tell's Capelle, said to mark the spot where the ap­ple-​shoot­ing pa­tri­ot leaped ashore and es­caped from the tyrant Gessler. I do not won­der at men, born and reared amid these moun­tains not sub­mit­ting to the yoke of op­pres­sion.

In read­ing up on Lucerne, I came up­on this, tak­en from “Ro­mance and Teu­ton­ic Switzer­land.”

“The Swiss na­tion was born on the banks of Lake Luzern, and crad­dled up­on its wa­ters. First, the chat­ter­ing waves told the news to the over­hang­ing beach­es; and they whis­pered it to the forests, to the lone­ly cedars on the up­lands. The blank precipices smiled, the Alpine ros­es blushed their bright­est, the sum­mer pas­tures glowed, the glaciers and avalanch­es roared ap­proval; and, fi­nal­ly, the top­most peaks promised to lend their white man­tles for the bap­tism.” That's rather nice­ly put, don't you think?

About half way along Ax­en­strasse, we dis­cov­ered that we were hun­gry, so we pro­posed to try one of the farm hous­es for some­thing to eat. Our guide, tried one that looked typ­ical of what we want­ed, and the rest of us wait­ed by the road, for ful­ly thir­ty min­utes.

At last the el­der re­turned, ex­plain­ing that he had had no easy task. He had to plead with ev­ery mem­ber of the house­hold, from grand­moth­er to daugh­ter, to get them to take us in; but at last he was suc­cess­ful. We went in­to a most in­ter­est­ing room. The fin­ish and fur­nish­ings were old and quaint, the wood­work bare of paint and scoured clean and smooth by years of scrub­bing. In time we were served with bread (they were out of but­ter, they said) pre­served cher­ries, wal­nuts, and hot milk. (Our guide said it was safer to have the milk boiled.) We en­joyed the meal amid the unique sur­round­ings. The good peo­ple were pro­fuse with thanks when we paid them in good-​sized sil­ver. I be­lieve the el­der left a gospel tract with them, so who can tell what will be the out­come of our vis­it?

From Flue­len we took steam­er back to Lucerne.

Well, it's get­ting late. I'd bet­ter go to bed. I fear I shall tire you by my guide-​book de­scrip­tions. But this for a good-​night's thought: Here I am away from you, away from my world, as it were. I can look back on my short life, and I can see the hand of an all­wise and mer­ci­ful Fa­ther, shap­ing events, ev­er for my good. Was it chance that we two should have tak­en the same steam­er and be thrown to­geth­er as we were. Not at all. There is a pow­er be­hind the uni­verse--call it what we may--which di­rects. This pow­er will not per­mit any hon­est, truth-​seek­ing soul to be over­come and be de­stroyed. I thank the Lord for His bless­ings to me. Out of seem­ing dark­ness and de­spair He has led me to light and hap­pi­ness. And may I say it, we two, be­cause of our cleav­ing to the light as it has been made known to us, have been brought to­geth­er. Is it not true? I wish and pray al­so that your fa­ther may soft­en his heart to­wards the truth. I some­times fear that his heart does al­ready ac­cept the gospel, but that his will says no. There now, good night.

* * * * *

Good morn­ing. I had a fine sleep. I dreamed that you were with me, and we were look­ing at the Li­on of Lucerne. The dy­ing li­on roared, and you clasped me so tight­ly in your fright, that I awoke,--all of which re­minds me that I have not told you much about this city or its sights.

The Li­on, I sup­pose is Lucerne's most dis­tinc­tive cu­rios­ity. As you will see by the card, it is a large fig­ure of a li­on carved out of the sol­id rock in the hill­side. Thor­wald­sen fur­nished the mod­el. It was made to com­mem­orate the brav­ery of the Swiss guards who fought in the ser­vice of Louis XVI at the out­break of the French Rev­olu­tion.

Switzer­land is some­times called the play­ground of Eu­rope. Down on the prom­enades by the lakes, one may see peo­ple from “ev­ery na­tion un­der heav­en” near­ly. By the way, who do you think I met, day be­fore yes­ter­day? Why, our would-​be gal­lant ship-​board friend. Strange to say, he was sober, and more strange, he ap­peared pleased to see me. He want­ed to take me to all kinds of places, and treat me to all kinds of good things; but fur­ther, strange(?) to re­late, I shook him for the com­pa­ny of a few na­tive saints, for there was a meet­ing that evening which I at­tend­ed. I had to speak too, in En­glish, of course, with one of the mis­sion­ar­ies in­ter­pret­ing. It was an odd ex­pe­ri­ence.

The post­man has just been here with your note. I was very sor­ry the news from you was not bet­ter. I am blam­ing my­self for tir­ing you out too much with my sight see­ing. Send me at least a card ev­ery­day to this ad­dress, _please_. I have thought to go through the coun­try to Bern, but I sup­pose all the lakes and moun­tains of Switzer­land look much alike. I am quite sat­is­fied with Lucerne. I was very much in­ter­est­ed in what your fa­ther said about “Mor­monism.” If our prayers are of any avail, we'll “get him” yet.

Be­fore I close this long let­ter, and I must do so now--I want to tell you of an in­ci­dent that oc­curred yes­ter­day. I was tak­ing a stroll up above the town, by my­self, for I will ad­mit I was in a “mood.” There are a lot of monks in Lucerne. You can see them on the street, fat, rol­ly-​poly look­ing men, bare, odd­ly-​cropped heads, and out­ward­ly clad in what looks like a dress­ing gown. Well, I was cu­ri­ous to see the con­vent where the monks live a life of ease, I sup­pose to get used to the eter­nal “rest” which they ex­pect when they get to heav­en, of which I have my “doubts.” How­ev­er, I did not find the con­vent, nor did I see any monks, but as I was walk­ing along an un­fre­quent­ly trav­eled road, I met a lit­tle boy and girl, walk­ing to­wards me, hand in hand. They were cry­ing. When they saw me, they wiped their eyes and stopped. I saw they were poor­ly clad, and, some­what dirty. I be­came in­ter­est­ed in them, but they were so shy that it was with dif­fi­cul­ty I got them to re­main. They looked at the cop­pers I held out, but they did not move un­til I placed a sil­ver piece be­side them. Their eyes round­ed out, then, and the lit­tle girl be­came brave enough to come and take them. Well, I tried my Ger­man on them, but they were, ev­ident­ly, too Swiss to un­der­stand me--I was at the time mak­ing a whis­tle from a small wil­low which I had cut from the way­side. I seat­ed my­self on the bank and went on mak­ing my whis­tle. The chil­dren watched me pound the bark, then twist off the loos­ened peel­ing, and fin­ish the whis­tle. When I blew it, they laughed. I hand­ed it to the boy, who timid­ly put it to his lips. They sat down by me, and I made a whis­tle for the girl, then a third, big­ger one, which I stuck in­to the boy's pock­et, telling him to take it home. You ought to have seen the changed ex­pres­sion on those two dirty faces when they left me, blow­ing hap­pi­ly on their wil­low whis­tles.

I was lone­some no longer. What a lit­tle thing will bring joy in­to a drea­ry life!

Love to all with heap­ing mea­sures for you, from

Yours as ev­er,

CHESTER.