He was hanged. It was a mistake. Within a month from his death the
society which he had honored had twenty new members, some of them
earnest, determined men. They did not court distinction in the same
way, but they celebrated his martyrdom. The crime which had been
obscure and despised had become lofty and glorified.
Such things were happening all over the country. Wild-brained martyrdom
was succeeded by uprising and organization. Then, in natural order,
followed riot, insurrection, and the wrack and restitutions of war. It
was bound to come, and it would naturally come in that way. It has been
the manner of reform since the beginning of the world.
SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY
Interlaken, Switzerland, 1891.
It is a good many years since I was in Switzerland last. In that remote
time there was only one ladder railway in the country. That state of
things is all changed. There isn’t a mountain in Switzerland now that
hasn’t a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders; indeed,
some mountains are latticed with them, and two years hence all will be.
In that day the peasant of the high altitudes will have to carry a
lantern when he goes visiting in the night to keep from stumbling over
railroads that have been built since his last round. And also in that
day, if there shall remain a high-altitude peasant whose potato-patch
hasn’t a railroad through it, it will make him as conspicuous as
William Tell.
However, there are only two best ways to travel through Switzerland.
The first best is afoot. The second best is by open two-horse carriage.
One can come from Lucerne to Interlaken over the Brunig by ladder
railroad in an hour or so now, but you can glide smoothly in a carriage
in ten, and have two hours for luncheon at noon—for luncheon, not for
rest. There is no fatigue connected with the trip. One arrives fresh in
spirit and in person in the evening—no fret in his heart, no grime on
his face, no grit in his hair, not a cinder in his eye. This is the
right condition of mind and body, the right and due preparation for the
solemn event which closed the day—stepping with metaphorically
uncovered head into the presence of the most impressive mountain mass
that the globe can show—the Jungfrau. The stranger’s first feeling,
when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped
in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if
heaven’s gates had swung open and exposed the throne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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