Alpine Memories (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SOUVENIRS OF TWO SUMMERS I BELONG?dare I confess it to the ranks of aimless climbers, of useless clubbists. Much as I admire Topffer and Tyndall, Calame and de Saussure, I have been, hitherto, unable to call myself the disciple of any of these glorious chiefs, or to practise assiduously in any of their schools. Attracted first by one and then by another, I follow them all at a distance?a very considerable distance, I am bound to add. Seated before the hearth, and in the midst of cow-herds, my mind goes back to the charming pages of Topffer; in the presence of a weather-beaten chalet or a fir-tree uprooted by the storm, I think of Calame; on the moraine or the edge of a glacier, I dream of de Saussure; on thehigh mountain top I envy Tyndall or Weilenmann. After my reverie I return, bearing away in my heart a few more beautiful memories, and perhaps a few ideas, but without any scientific observations or studies of glaciers; without a plant or a sketch; scarcely perhaps with a flower gathered on the margin of the neve, or from the crest or slopes of a beloved peak. In short, I return as empty as when I set out. Alexandra Calame (1810-1864), pupil of Diday at Geneva, produced a number of remarkable lithographs and etchings. Among the etchings are eighteen views of Lauterbrunnen and Meringen, i .i: J, and twenty-four Paysages des Alpes, 1845. Among the most noteworthy of his paintings are perhaps Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, Lac de Brienz, Chute de la Handeck, Midi d'ete, Soir d'automne, Nuit d'hiver. He was one of Topfier's illustrators. His life, Alexandre Calame: Histovre de sa vie et son ceuvre, was written by Eugene Rambert (Paris, 1883).?Tb. I have scarcely the courage to confess it, after the serious strictures which I have read upon the exploits of climbers of my sta...