rendered ornamental by a great deal of labor bestowed upon their
wood-work. This is best executed in the canton of Berne. The door is
always six or seven feet from the ground, and occasionally much more,
that it may be accessible in snow; and is reached by an oblique gallery,
leading up to a horizontal one, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4. The base of
the cottage is formed of stone, generally whitewashed. The chimneys
must have a chapter to themselves; they are splendid examples of utility
combined with ornament.

[Illustration: FIG. 3. Swiss Cottage. 1837.]

[Illustration: FIG. 4. Cottage near Altorf. 1835.]

Such are the chief characteristics of the Swiss cottage, separately
considered. I must now take notice of its effect in scenery.

42. When one has been wandering for a whole morning through a valley of
perfect silence, where everything around, which is motionless, is
colossal, and everything which has motion, resistless; where the
strength and the glory of nature are principally developed in the very
forces which feed upon her majesty; and where, in the midst of
mightiness which seems imperishable, all that is indeed eternal is the
influence of desolation; one is apt to be surprised, and by no means
agreeably, to find, crouched behind some projecting rock, a piece of
architecture which is neat in the extreme, though in the midst of
wildness, weak in the midst of strength, contemptible in the midst of
immensity. There is something offensive in its neatness: for the wood is
almost always perfectly clean, and looks as if it had just been cut; it
is consequently raw in its color, and destitute of all variety of tone.
This is especially disagreeable, when the eye has been previously