Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great,
sunny, glass-roofed, and tiled gymnasium, at the
far end of which, lined with bright marble, is your
plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious
boiler.
The whole loft of the house from end to end makes
one undivided chamber; here are set forth tables on
which to model imaginary or actual countries in putty
or plaster, with tools and hardy pigments; a carpenter’s
bench; and a spared corner for photography, while
at the far end a space is kept clear for playing soldiers.
Two boxes contain the two armies of some five hundred
horse and foot; two others the ammunition of each
side, and a fifth the foot-rules and the three colours
of chalk, with which you lay down, or, after a day’s
play, refresh the outlines of the country; red or
white for the two kinds of road (according as they
are suitable or not for the passage of ordnance),
and blue for the course of the obstructing rivers.
Here I foresee that you may pass much happy time;
against a good adversary a game may well continue for
a month; for with armies so considerable three moves
will occupy an hour. It will be found to set
an excellent edge on this diversion if one of the
players shall, every day or so, write a report of the
operations in the character of army correspondent.
I have left to the last the little room for winter
evenings. This should be furnished in warm positive
colours, and sofas and floor thick with rich furs.
The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality
on silver dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures;
the seats deep and easy; a single Titian in a gold
frame; a white bust or so upon a bracket; a rack for
the journals of the week; a table for the books of
the year; and close in a corner the three shelves
full of eternal books that never weary: Shakespeare,
Moliere, Montaigne, Lamb, Sterne, De Musset’s
comedies (the one volume open at Carmosine and the
other at Fantasio); the Arabian Nights, and kindred
stories, in Weber’s solemn volumes; Borrow’s
Bible in Spain, the Pilgrim’s Progress, Guy
Mannering and Rob Roy, Monte Cristo and the Vicomte
de Bragelonne, immortal Boswell sole among biographers,
Chaucer, Herrick, and the State Trials.
The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no furniture,
floors of varnished wood, and at the bed-head, in
case of insomnia, one shelf of books of a particular
and dippable order, such as Pepys, the Paston Letters,
Burt’s Letters from the Highlands, or the Newgate
Calendar. . . .
CHAPTER IX—DAVOS IN WINTER
A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like
effect on the imagination, but a mountain valley,
an Alpine winter, and an invalid’s weakness
make up among them a prison of the most effective
kind. The roads indeed are cleared, and at least
one footpath dodging up the hill; but to these the
health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are
for him no cross-cuts over the field, no following
