112 PRÆTERITA-I

never travelled on Sunday; my father and I nearly always went-as philosophers-to mass, in the morning, and my mother, in pure good-nature to us, (I scarcely ever saw in her a trace of feminine curiosity,) would join with us in some such profanity as a drive on the Corso, or the like, in the afternoon. But we all, even my father, liked a walk in the fields better, round an Alpine châlet village.¹

129. At page 81 I threatened more accurate note of my first impressions of Switzerland and Italy in 1833.² Of customary Calais I have something to say later on,³-here I note only our going up Rhine to Strasburg, where, with all its miracles of building, I was already wise enough to feel the cathedral stiff and iron-worky; but was greatly excited and impressed by the high roofs and rich fronts of the wooden houses, in their sudden indication of nearness to Switzerland; and especially by finding the scene so admirably expressed by Prout in the 36th plate⁴ of his Flanders and Germany, still uninjured. And then, with Salvador was held council in the inn-parlour of Strasburg, whether-it was then the Friday afternoon-we should push on to-morrow for our Sunday’s rest to Basle, or to Schaffhausen.

130. How much depended-if ever anything “depends” on anything else,-on the issue of that debate! Salvador inclined to the straight and level Rhine-side road, with the luxury of the “Three Kings” attainable by sunset. But at Basle, it had to be admitted, there were no Alps in sight, no cataract within hearing, and Salvador honourably laid before us the splendid alternative possibility of reaching,

¹ [The MS. adds here:-

“For the full tasting of all these enjoyments he and I were alike prepared to the finest degree of sensitiveness, by our home lives. My father had known the pinch of poverty, and borne the stress of steady toil; to find himself living, with unstinted power, in a palace at Genoa, or floating with absolutely nothing to do or to be anxious about, down the Grand Canal at Venice, was an extremely marvellous and romantic fact to him, giving a root of inner life to whatever was marvellous and romantic in the scenes themselves.”

Then follows, somewhat varied, § 152.]

² [For Ruskin’s account of this tour written at the time, in prose and verse, see Vol. II. pp. 340-387.]

³ [See ii. §§ 185-187 (pp. 415-417).]

⁴ [“St. Omer, Strasbourg.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]