Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/92

---

Since we were here together I have always wanted to see the Lesser Scheideck again. So I woke early this morning almost in a state of fear, so many things might happen to spoil my chance, bad weather, clouds, rain, or mist. But no, it was a day that might have been made solely for me to cross the Wengernalp. The sky was flecked with light clouds, that swept clear of the highest peaks; there was no mist on any of the mountains, every summit sparkling in the clear air with every point and mass on it clear cut—how am I to describe it? You know the Wengernalp, but then we saw it in bad weather. To-day all the mountains were arrayed as for a feast, nothing was wanting, from the thundering avalanches to the people in their Sunday clothes going to church, just as they were doing then. I really remembered little of the mountains except the wild jagged outline of them high up against the sky; but to-day I felt overpowered by their measureless breadth, the mass of the white expanses, the harmonious placing of all these monstrous towers, the way in which they enfold each other and join hands, as it were, round one. Fancy besides all the glaciers, all the snow fields, all the crags lit up to a dazzling whiteness, and flashing in it, and then the distant summits of other chains struggling up to peep into the landscape. I have a feeling that God’s own thoughts must look something like that. Whoever does not know God may find Him here, and the nature He has made, clear before his very eyes. And through it all there is the dear fresh air that rouses you when you are tired, and