calèche to Bellinzona, left Wiedeman there, and, returning on our steps,
steamed down and up again the Lago Maggiore, went from Bellinzona to
Faido and slept, and crossed the Mount St. Gothard the next day,
catching the Lucerne steamer at Fluellen. The scenery everywhere was
most exquisite, but of the great _pass_ I shall say nothing--it was like
standing in the presence of God when He is terrible. The tears
overflowed my eyes. I think I never _saw_ the sublime before. Do you
know I sate out in the coupé a part of the way with Robert so as to
apprehend the whole sight better, with a thick shawl over my head, only
letting out the eyes to see. They told us there was more snow than is
customary at this time of year, and it well might be so, for the passage
through it, cut for the carriage, left the snow-walls nodding over us at
a great height on each side, and the cold was intense.

Do you know we might yield the palm, and that Lucerne is far finer than
any of our Italian lakes? Even Robert had to confess it at once. I
wanted to stay in Switzerland, but we found it wiser to hasten our steps
and come to Paris; so we came. Yes, and we travelled from Strasburg to
Paris in four-and-twenty hours, night and day, never stopping except for
a quarter of an hour's breakfast and half an hour's dinner. So afraid I
was of the fatigue for Wiedeman! But between the unfinished railroad and
the diligence, there's a complication of risks of losing places just
now, and we were forced to go the whole way in a breath or to hazard
being three or four days on the road. So we took the coupé and resigned
ourselves, and poor little babe slept at night and laughed in the day,
and came into Paris as fresh in spirit as if just alighted from the
morning star, screaming out with delight at the shops! Think of that
child! Upon the whole he has enjoyed our journey as much as any one of
us, observing and admiring; though Robert and Wilson will have it that
some of his admiration of the _scenery_ we passed through was pure