332 PRÆTERITA-II

Left to die, like the green lizards, in the blind clefts of their rocks, whence they see no God.

96. Village of Simplon, 15th June:-

“At eight this evening I was sitting on the highest col of the Simplon, watching the light die on the Breithorn; nothing round me but rock and lichen, except one purple flower,” (coloured and very accurate drawing,. at the side, of Linaria Alpina,) “and the forget-me-not, which grows everywhere. My walk home was very lovely, star after star coming out above my head, the white hills gleaming among them; the gulph of pines, with the torrent, black and awful below; lights breaking softly through cottage windows.

“Cassiopeia is rising above a piny mountain, exactly opposite my window.”

The linaria must have been brought “home” (the Simplon village inn was already more that to me than ever Denmark Hill), and painted next morning-it could not have been so rightly coloured at night; also the day had been a heavy one. At six, morning, I had visited Signor Zanetti, and reviewed his collection of pictures on Isola dei Pescatori; walked up most of the defile of Gondo; and the moment we got to the Simplon village, dashed off to catch the sunset from the col; five miles up hill against time, (and walk against time up a regular slope of eight feet in the hundred is the most trying foot-work I know,) five miles back under the stars, with the hills not under but among them, and careful entry, of which I have only given a sentence, make up a day which shows there was now no farther need to be alarmed about my health. My good father, who was never well in the high air, and hated the chills from patches of melting snow, stayed nevertheless all next day at the village, to let me climb the long-coveted peak west of the Simplon col, which forms the great precipice on the Brieg side. “It commanded the Valais far down, the Bernese Alps in their whole extent,

[Version 0.04: March 2008]