The Alps, Switzerland, and the North of Italy

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ...the burghers, and had not the same means of defence, they bore the tyranny with apparent submission for some years. "We shrink from the recital of acts of disgusting cruelty and insolence, but one instance ought to be mentioned. Laudenburg had seized a pair of oxen, belonging to an inhabitant of Melcthal, called also Arnold or Erni, as a punishment for some alleged disobedience. One of his servants, in answer to the expostulation of Melcthal, suid, that peasants needed no oxen, and might draw the plough themselves. The insolence provoked a blow with a stick. Melcthal fled, but his father being taken in his stead, had his eyes put out. How naturally and pathetically has Schiller depicted the discovery of his loss on the part of his son! Melcthal. O, the eye's light, of all the gifts of Heaven, The dearest, best! From light all bcinga live--Each fair created thing--the very plants Turn with a joyful transport to the light, And he--he must drag on through all his days In endless darkness! Never more for him The sunny meads shall glow, the flow'reto bloom; Nor shall he more behold the roseate tints Of the iced mountain top! To die is nothing, But to have life, and not have sight, --oh! that Is misery indeed! Why do you look So piteously at me? I have two eyes, Yet, to my poor blind father can give neither! No, not one gleam of that great sea of light, That with its dazzling splendour floods my gaze! Stauffacher. Ah, I must swell the measure of your grief, Instead of soothing it. The worst, alas! Remains to tell. They've stripp'd him of his all; Nought have they left him, save his staff, on which Blind, and in rags, he moves from door to door." Stauffacher, into whose mouth the poet has put this language, is said to have been roused...