delivering into her husband’s ear that gospel of revolt which was
to bear fruit in the conspiracy of Rutli and the birth of the
first free government the world had ever seen.
From this Victoria Hotel one looks straight across a flat of
trifling width to a lofty mountain barrier, which has a gateway
in it shaped like an inverted pyramid. Beyond this gateway
arises the vast bulk of the Jungfrau, a spotless mass of gleaming
snow, into the sky. The gateway, in the dark-colored barrier,
makes a strong frame for the great picture. The somber frame and
the glowing snow-pile are startlingly contrasted. It is this
frame which concentrates and emphasizes the glory of the Jungfrau
and makes it the most engaging and beguiling and fascinating
spectacle that exists on the earth. There are many mountains of
snow that are as lofty as the Jungfrau and as nobly proportioned,
but they lack the fame. They stand at large; they are intruded
upon and elbowed by neighboring domes and summits, and their
grandeur is diminished and fails of effect.
It is a good name, Jungfrau–Virgin. Nothing could be
whiter; nothing could be purer; nothing could be saintlier of
aspect. At six yesterday evening the great intervening barrier
seen through a faint bluish haze seemed made of air and
substanceless, so soft and rich it was, so shimmering where the
wandering lights touched it and so dim where the shadows lay.
Apparently it was a dream stuff, a work of the imagination,
nothing real about it. The tint was green, slightly varying
shades of it, but mainly very dark. The sun was down–as far as
that barrier was concerned, but not for the Jungfrau, towering
into the heavens beyond the gateway. She was a roaring
conflagration of blinding white.
It is said the Fridolin (the old Fridolin), a new saint, but
formerly a missionary, gave the mountain its gracious name. He
was an Irishman, son of an Irish king–there were thirty thousand
kings reigning in County Cork alone in his time, fifteen hundred
years ago. It got so that they could not make a living, there
was so much competition and wages got cut so. Some of them were
out of work months at a time, with wife and little children to
feed, and not a crust in the place. At last a particularly
severe winter fell upon the country, and hundreds of them were
reduced to mendicancy and were to be seen day after day in the
bitterest weather, standing barefoot in the snow, holding out
their crowns for alms. Indeed, they would have been obliged to
emigrate or starve but for a fortunate idea of Prince Fridolin’s,
who started a labor-union, the first one in history, and got the
great bulk of them to join it. He thus won the general
gratitude, and they wanted to make him emperor–emperor over them
all–emperor of County Cork, but he said, No, walking delegate
was good enough for him. For behold! he was modest beyond his
years, and keen as a whip. To this day in Germany and
Switzerland, where St. Fridolin is revered and honored, the
peasantry speak of him affectionately as the first walking
delegate.
The first walk he took was into France and Germany,
missionarying–for missionarying was a better thing in those days
than it is in ours. All you had to do was to cure the savage’s
sick daughter by a “miracle”–a miracle like the miracle of
Lourdes in our day, for instance–and immediately that head
savage was your convert, and filled to the eyes with a new
convert’s enthusiasm. You could sit down and make yourself easy,
now. He would take an ax and convert the rest of the nation
himself. Charlemagne was that kind of a walking delegate.
Yes, there were great missionaries in those days, for the
methods were sure and the rewards great. We have no such
missionaries now, and no such methods.
But to continue the history of the first walking delegate,
if you are interested. I am interested myself because I have
seen his relics in Sackingen, and also the very spot where he
worked his great miracle–the one which won him his sainthood in