DILECTA 591

neighbouring hills. We took boat down lake Brienz as far as waterfall of Giesbach, the finest fall next to those of Rhine I have yet seen; but the best thing was the Swiss family in the small inn up the hill opposite to the fall. The old man, his son, and two daughters, sung Swiss songs in the sweetest and most affecting manner, infinitely finer than opera singing, because true alike to Nature and to music;* no grimace nor affectation, nor strained efforts to produce effect. The tunes were well chosen, and the whole very delightful; more so than any singing I remember. We returned to Interlachen, where the Justice condemned Salvador to pay twelve francs for a carriage not used, which he had hired to go to the Staubbach. Next morning we returned by water to Thun to breakfast, and again to Berne, where we had very nice rooms, with fine prospect.

31. “The portico walks in almost every street in Berne are very convenient for rain or sun: it is in this like Chester, though the one appearing a very new town, and the other very old. We left Berne 22nd July by a narrow but not bad road through Sumiswald; dined at Huttwyl; slept at Sursee, in the Catholic canton of Lucerne. The hill and dale country we passed through to the very end of the Berne canton was a scene of unequalled loveliness out of this canton. The face of the country was varied, but the richness of cultivation the same, and the houses so large, and yet so neat and comfortable. This is, indeed, a country for which a man might sigh, and almost die, of regret, to be exiled from. I have seen nothing at all approaching to it in the neatest parts of England. The town of Berne is equally remarkable for good though not lofty buildings, and for cleanliness and neatness. The street-sweepers were women; and I never saw a city or town so beautifully kept. I walked up many back streets and lanes, all in the most perfect order; and the country seen from the cathedral terrace and ramparts is just suited to such a town. There is no formed, squared, or trimmed neatness, but every field, and hedge, and tree, and garden, seem to be tended and kept in the finest state possible. The variety of scenery on the grandest scale,-the snowy Alps, the lower Alps, the woods on undulating grounds, or sloping down from the mountain tops; the fine river passing round the town; the rich cornfields, meadows, and fruit trees, abounding over all; nature doing so much, and man just bestowing the care and culture required, and applying art only where it seems to improve nature.

32. “If any country on earth can be deemed perfect as far as nature and art can make it, the canton of Berne is that country. The farm houses are each a picture, and the peasantry are as beautiful and healthy as the country. They express contentment. Their costume is handsome, excepting the black, stiff, whalebone-lace ears of immense size from the women’s heads; when they wear black lace over their heads partially, the rest of their dress is extremely becoming. On Wednesday, July 17th, we

* I shall make this sentence the text of what I have to say, when I have made a few more experiments in our schools here, of the use of music in peasant education.¹

¹ [This chapter of Dilecta was issued in January 1887. For Ruskin’s experiments in teaching music to the village children, see the Introduction, above, p. xxvi. Nothing further, however, was written on the subject.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]