636 APPENDIX

one side to the other of, I class with the Deluge, the Glacial Period, and the void of Space.

But it is extremely curious to me that among the many scientific jottings on bygone deluges and the microscopic vermin of modern ditches, I can’t lay my hand on any document concerning the depth of the Rhine either at Basle, Strasburg, or Cologne; nor among the long talks on aqueous denudation, do I find the slightest notice whether the Rhine is supposed to be washing Basle, Strasburg, and Cologne away, or whether those venerable cities are, on the contrary, with the remains of their mortality, inconveniencing the Rhine: to a greater extent than they have pleased it with their poetry.

My own impression has always been that considering the quantity of mud and sand the river carries down, as soon as it has entered the sandstone districts, it is a wonder the often languid flow clears its bed so continuously, and that practically Basle and Cologne stand pretty much at the brim of it as they did in the year 1200. Little of Basle dates so far back, but it was, when I first knew it, one of the venerablest cities in Europe, in its mingling of simple Swiss manner of building with the plain Burgundian Gothic of the fifteenth century.

Some additional matter, found among the MSS. and intended for ch. iii. (“L’Esterelle”), is now printed as an Appendix to it (pp. 532-534).

Ch. v.-“The Source of the Arveron”-was to have told, among other things, of Ruskin’s love of Alpine streams, meadows, and flowers. The following fragment, dated “Brantwood, 31st May 1889,” was to have been the beginning of the chapter:-

Not only in the order, but a little in the method, of Præterita, the delay of its conclusion has involved changes;-there are so many things now pleading to be told distinctly as soon as possible that I cannot resolutely choose among them, but must let the accidents of each day guide or divert my thoughts as I used to do in For:- only, I have now both design and fixed boundaries in each chapter, of which the one must be in some sort fulfilled, and the other not exceeded.

And it was by a pleasant and helpful chance yesterday that Miss Kate Greenaway, who came down last week to consult with me, among other matters, on the possibility of getting a pied piper or two enrolled in the Coniston Band, gathered and brought in to show me as new to her a little branch of the mountain vetch, which has been wonderful always to me for the grace of its fading flower;- there are so few flowers that are lovely in their passing away, but this branch is still in its first springing; the flower is almost as bright as a pink, the leaf faultless in symmetry, and the sight of it brings back instantly, and compels me to record with some care, the course of the last happy day I ever spent with Lady Trevelyan.

It was at this time of the spring, in 1866. Sir Walter and she, with their little Connie, now rising fourteen and a dainty little vetch of a girl, intended a journey into Switzerland,-chiefly for Lady Trevelyan’s health, but partly also to enable me to take Joanna for a

[Version 0.04: March 2008]