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Updated: May 20, 2025
We went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither and thither, in the shade of noble woods, and with a rich variety and profusion of wild flowers all about us; and glimpses of rounded grassy backbones below us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses of far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toys and obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then some ermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for a moment, then drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again.
This is also a great country for churches. Every group of chalets that calls itself a village has at least one long-spired gray church in its midst, and frequently more than one. In one sweep of hillside view from our car window I counted seven church steeples.
Sometimes they look all misty and unreal almost like a mirage, and then, the very next day, perhaps, they'll have turned back into hard-edged, solid rock and you can't imagine their ever looking like dream-mountains again." Gradually, as they mounted, they left the verdant valleys, with their sheltered farms and chalets, behind.
And Swiss villages, now don't you think they are rather disappointing? such a cruel plagiarism of those plaster châlets the image-men carry about the London streets, and no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the hotel." "Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look.
Turn where you please on this island domain, memories of that charming and incisive personality will meet your eye and ear; memories in stone-schools, convents, decayed castles and bathing chalets; memories in the spoken word proverbs attributed to him, legends and traditions of his sagacity that still linger among the populace. His amiable laughter-loving ghost pervades the capital to this hour.
He had tried every imaginable remedy, and now, as a last expedient, was about to take her to her paternal home in the South, to see what native air might do. Poor lady! ill and depressed she looked indeed. As we get nearer Vienne the aspect of the country changes. There is an Italian look about the vines trellised on trees, and festooned under the tiled roofs of the little riverside chalets.
Were it not for the wild appearance of its Tenngri mountaineers, Tosari, which is the best health resort in Java, might be readily mistaken for an Alpine village, for it has the same steep and straggling streets, the same weather-beaten chalets clinging precariously to the rocky hillsides, the same quaint shops, their windows filled with souvenirs and postcards, the same glorious view of green valleys and majestic peaks, the same crisp, cool air, as exhilarating as champagne.
In Europe there may, perhaps, be less bad taste, though I am not sure of that; but there, and everywhere, I think, the memorable houses, among those of recent date, are not those carefully elaborated for effect, the premeditated irregularity of the English Gothic, the trig regularity of the French Pseudo-Classic, or the studied rusticity of Germany, but such as seem to have grown of themselves out of the place where they stand, Swiss chalets, Mexican or Manila plantation-houses, Italian farm-houses, built, nobody knows when or by whom, and built without any thought of attracting attention.
"Chonkina, Chonkina," it seemed to be beating. The rickshaws turned into a broader street with houses taller and more commanding than any seen hitherto. They were built of brown wood like big Swiss chalets, and were hung with red paper lanterns like huge ripe cherries.
"The roof, papa! the roof of our chalet! it is quite whole; it will be a bridge for us if we can only get to it." "What roof? What chalet?" said I, in astonishment. "The roof of our little hermitage," said he, "which we had covered so well with stones, like the Swiss chalets."
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