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I have selected Lucerne for the purpose; you know how dearly I love the Lake of Lucerne; the Righi, Pilatus, etc., are indispensable remedies to me and my blood. I shall live there in solitude, and at this time of the year shall easily find a most desirable lodging. There I mean to work splendidly. My Erard has already preceded me.
"There are the goats, and Bello," answered Seppi comfortingly. He looked straight up into the sky. Little wisps of clouds were gathering around the crest of old Pilatus now. The sun was suddenly hidden, and he felt a drop of rain. "It's going to rain here in a minute, and hard, too," he said. "What shall we do?" cried Leneli, rolling up her knitting and springing to her feet.
"Oh," she murmured, "each hour it will speak to me of him and his words," then softly, like one adream in Paradise: "I love but thee, And thee will I love to eternity." Such was the event to her. What was it to him? Let us see: A hotel room a view of Pilatus, but with its top lost in enveloping clouds.
At rare intervals a steamboat, bright and neat as a new toy, trailed a long feather of smoke from the foot of the Rigi, shed a small and dusty crowd into the sleepy town, and then bustled back, shearing the silken flood and strangely distorting its reflections. "The worst of Lucerne," said Mrs. Sylvester "the worst of Lucerne is that one can't escape from Mount Pilatus and the Lion.
Thus no one who has visited Lucerne can fail to remember the rugged mountain called 'Pilatus' or 'Mont Pilate, which stands opposite to him; while if he has been among the few who have cared to climb it, he will have been shown by his guide the lake at its summit in which Pontius Pilate in his despair drowned himself, with an assurance that from this suicide of his the mountain obtained its name.
Was he not rewarded for his treachery with the sharp-edged pilatus which gave to him the new name 'Pilate'? Did not the son of this heathen dog follow Germanicus and through him creep in among the Romans of high estate? Did he not wed Claudia Procula, granddaughter of Augustus? And shortly thereafter was he not made Procurator at Jerusalem? Who should sit in state in Herod's palace in Jerusalem?
The troops of the central authorities, marching forth from Berne to quell the rising ferment, sustained a repulse at the foot of Mont Pilatus, as also before the walls of Zürich; and, the revolt of the federals ever gathering force, the Helvetic authorities were driven from Berne to Lausanne.
The poetical efforts of that early age may be grouped under national epos: the "Nibelungenlied;" art epos: the "Rolandslied," "Percival," etc.; the introduction of antique legends: Veldeck's "Aeneide," and Konrad's "War of Troy;" Christian legends "Barlaam," "Sylvester," "Pilatus," etc.; poetical narratives: "Crescentia," "Graf Rudolf," etc.; animal legends; "Reinecke Vos;" didactic poems: "Der Renner;" the Minne-poetry, and prose.
Eventually, he hid himself away, on the heights of Mount Pilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years; but rest and peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his misery by drowning himself. Presently we passed the place where a man of better odor was born. This was the children's friend, Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas.
Here speaks the true panoramic man, the man whose mind attains to fulness of expression on mountain-tops from which the whole landscape of life may be contemplated. And yet he notes the "ominous configuration of Mount Pilatus" and its terrible form, and writes of adjoining mountains as "these hump-backed, goitred giants crouching around me in the darkness."
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