When the summer drew on, to my great pleasure we went to
Switzerland again. We established ourselves quietly at
Lucerne, which papa was very fond of. There we were much more
quiet than we had been the fall before; Ransom having gone
home now to take his share in the struggle, and our two
Southern friends who had also gone, having no successors like
them in our little home circle. We made not so many and not so
long excursions. But papa and I had good time for our
readings; and I had always a friend with whom I could take
counsel, in the grand old Mont Pilatte. What a friend that
mountain was to me, to be sure! When I was downhearted, and
when anything made me glad; when I was weary and when I was
most full of life; its grand head in the skies told me of
truth and righteousness and strength; the light and colours
that played and rested there, as it held, the sun's beams and
gave them back to earth, were a sort of promise to me of
beauty and life above and beyond this earth; yes, and of its
substantial existence now, even when we do not see it. They
were a little hint of what we do not see. I do not exactly
know what was the language of the wreaths of vapour that robed
and shrouded and then revealed the mountain, with the
exquisite shiftings and changings of their gracefulness; I
believe it was like, to me, the floating veil that hides God's
purposes from us, yet now and then parting enough to let us
see the eternal truth and unchangeableness behind it. I told
all my moods to Mont Pilatte, and I think it told all its
moods to me. After a human friend, there is nothing like a big
mountain. And when the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg came;
and mamma grew furious; and I saw for the first time that
success was truly looming up on the horizon of the North, and
that my dear coloured people might indeed soon be free; that
night Mont Pilatte and I shouted together.
There came no particular light on my own affairs all this
time. Indeed mamma began to reproach me for what she called my
disloyal and treacherous sentiments. And then, hints began to
break out, very hard to bear, that I had indulged in
traitorous alliances and was an unworthy child of my house. It
rankled in mamma's mind, that I had not only refused the
connection with one of the two powerful Southern families
which had sought me the preceding year; but that I had also
discouraged and repelled during the past winter several
addresses which might have been made very profitable to my
country as well as my own interests. For what had I rejected
them all? mamma began to ask discontentedly. Papa shielded me
a little; but I felt that the sky was growing dark around me
with the coming storm.