At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there
is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are,
indeed, many hotels, for the entertainment of tourists
is the business of the place, which, as many travelers
will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably
blue lake—a lake that it behooves every
tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents
an unbroken array of establishments of this order,
of every category, from the “grand hotel”
of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a
hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its
roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder day,
with its name inscribed in German-looking lettering
upon a pink or yellow wall and an awkward summerhouse
in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels
at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being
distinguished from many of its upstart neighbors by
an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this
region, in the month of June, American travelers are
extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevey
assumes at this period some of the characteristics
of an American watering place. There are sights
and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport
and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and
thither of “stylish” young girls, a rustling
of muslin flounces, a rattle of dance music in the
morning hours, a sound of high-pitched voices at all
times. You receive an impression of these things
at the excellent inn of the “Trois Couronnes”
and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or
to Congress Hall. But at the “Trois Couronnes,”
it must be added, there are other features that are
much at variance with these suggestions: neat
German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation;
Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish
boys walking about held by the hand, with their governors;
a view of the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the
picturesque towers of the Castle of Chillon.
I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the
differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young
American, who, two or three years ago, sat in the
garden of the “Trois Couronnes,” looking
about him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects
I have mentioned. It was a beautiful summer morning,
and in whatever fashion the young American looked
at things, they must have seemed to him charming.
He had come from Geneva the day before by the little
steamer, to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel—Geneva
having been for a long time his place of residence.
But his aunt had a headache— his aunt
had almost always a headache—and now she
was shut up in her room, smelling camphor, so that
he was at liberty to wander about. He was some
seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke
of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva “studying.”
When his enemies spoke of him, they said—but,
after all, he had no enemies; he was an extremely
amiable fellow, and universally liked. What I
