Travel in the Bernese Oberland

as life, they are a life of joy, and, to put it emphatically or perhaps a bit pompously, a life of the gods.

With wonderful emotion, I am always moved by the exclamation of Berlichingen in Goethe: “Almighty God! How well one feels under your heaven! How free! The trees are budding, and the whole world is full of hope!” — After a while, the dying man calls out: “Heavenly air — Freedom! Freedom!” —

And where could we have all this more fully, more genuinely, more gloriously than out in the sublime mountain world, where the omnipotence of God radiates sevenfold? Wellbeing under a more beautiful sky, heavenly air for the more active body, unconstrained impetus for the feeling and aspiring spirit — these are the joys of the Alpine land:

“On the mountains is freedom! The breath of the

crypts

“Does not rise up into the pure air,
“The world is perfect everywhere,
“Where man does not arrive with his

torment.” — — *)

If, however, we view the refreshing nature of mountain travel less in poetic fervor and more in calm and prosaic reflection, we will discover such a surprisingly large amount of pure gain for body and soul that we will with threefold desire...

*) Schiller in The Bride of Messina. Theater, Vol. 3, p. 592.