the drama of the mountains

non canimus surdis.—virgil.

i will here give two or three pages to the blue boy. he is not at all aware that i am about to put him into print. the reader, i trust, will think that the betrayal of confidence involved in my doing so is not altogether unjustifiable. i mentioned that on the day we crossed the grimsel, from the rhone glacier to meiringen, he was unusually silent. he afterwards told me that he had then been engaged in composing a drama, which was to be entitled ‘the drama of the mountains,’ in which the most conspicuous mountains he had seen—he had in 1870 made the acquaintance of m. blanc—were to be the dramatis personæ. nothing more was said on the subject then, or afterwards. we have infantine productions of dr. johnson, pope, the late professor conington, and of others. i now offer the following drama, as an addition to this kind of literature. i can vouch for its entire authenticity and 185genuineness. it shall be printed from the blue boy’s own ms. the whole composition was arranged in his mind, some days before it was put upon paper, without a hint or suggestion from anybody, and subsequently not a word was corrected, nor even a point in the stopping altered. it could not have been more entirely his own had he been the only soul in switzerland at the time it was composed. he was alone, too, at the time it was put upon paper. on the first day we were at aigle—i have just mentioned that it was a wet day—i found him writing it currente calamo; and on hearing what he was about, i immediately left the room.

i must premise that last summer i had read to him shakespeare’s julius cæsar (he was then translating cæsar’s commentaries), and the midsummer night’s dream. on each of which occasions he immediately afterwards produced a drama of his own; one in the high classical style founded on roman history, the other in the style of bottom’s interlude. his having had those two plays read to him is the extent of his acquaintance with dramatic literature.

those who may happen to have no personal acquaintance with his dramatis personæ, will allow a word or two on the appropriateness of the parts imagined for them. blanc, of course, is emperor in his own, the old, right: from his shoulders and upwards he is higher than any of his people. so with 186rosa: she has the same fitness for being empress. weishorn and jungfrau are, beyond controversy, worthy of being, as the order of nature has made them, prince and princess imperial. cervin (the blue boy thinks in french, and so he calls matterhorn by his french name), by reason of his signal and conspicuous uprightness, is the best of prime ministers. schreckhorn’s name and character fit him for the ministry of police, and prepare us for his horrible treason. simplon has conferred on him the place of the emperor’s messenger, on account of his services to the world in supporting the most serviceable of the great passes into italy. we are not surprised at finding silberhorn acting as chancellor of the exchequer. mönch appropriately counsels peace. finsteraarhorn, it will be observed, is taunted with hardly daring to show his face: a sarcastic allusion to the difficulty there is of getting a view of this mountain.

that the empire of the mountains was transferred to the potentate of the himalaya, was intended not only as an illustration of the bad policy of calling in to our assistance one stronger than ourselves—the mistake the horse made when he entered into a league with man to drive the stag from the contested pasture—but, also, as an application, and this was the main idea, of the broad simple principle of detur digniori.