monstrous rock surfaces rose towards the shining peaks above, and
there were winding moraines from which the ice had receded, and then
dark clustering fir trees far below.

I had an extraordinary feeling of having come out of things, of
being outside.

"But this is the round world!" I said, with a sense of never having
perceived it before; "this is the round world!"



9


That holiday was full of big comprehensive effects; the first view
of the Rhone valley and the distant Valaisian Alps, for example,
which we saw from the shoulder of the mountain above the Gemmi, and
the early summer dawn breaking over Italy as we moved from our
night's crouching and munched bread and chocolate and stretched our
stiff limbs among the tumbled and precipitous rocks that hung over
Lake Cingolo, and surveyed the winding tiring rocky track going down
and down to Antronapiano.

And our thoughts were as comprehensive as our impressions.
Willersley's mind abounded in historical matter; he had an
inaccurate abundant habit of topographical reference; he made me see
and trace and see again the Roman Empire sweep up these winding
valleys, and the coming of the first great Peace among the warring
tribes of men. . . .