Rollo in Geneva. Jacob Abbott
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established—as there is in respect to all the rivers, towns, mountains, and other localities on the globe that are well known and often spoken of in the English world.
Mont Blanc is one of these. Like the word Paris it has its French pronunciation for the French, and its English pronunciation for the English; and its English pronunciation is as if it were spelled Mount Blank or Mont Blank. Under this name it has been known and spoken of familiarly all over England and America for centuries; and this, it seems to me, is the proper name to give it when we are speaking English.
Its French pronunciation is very different. It is one which none but a practical French scholar can possibly imitate, except in a very awkward manner. Those who have visited France and Switzerland, and have been accustomed to the French sound, often give the word the French pronunciation; but it is not at all necessary to do so. The word, like Paris, has its own established English sound; and if it is not pedantry to attempt to give it the French sound when speaking English, it certainly is not a mispronunciation to give it the English one. Indeed, to require the French pronunciation of the word from English speakers would be in effect to banish it almost altogether from conversation; for among the ten millions, more or less, in England or America, who speak English well, there is probably not one in a thousand that can possibly give the word its true French pronunciation.
In reading this book, therefore, and in speaking of the great Swiss mountain, you are perfectly safe in giving it its plain English sound, as if it were written Mont Blank; and remember the principle, as applicable to all other similar cases. Wherever a foreign name has become so familiar to the English world as to have obtained an established English pronunciation, in speaking English we give it that pronunciation, without any regard to the usage of the people who live on the spot.
But now I must return to Geneva, and give some further account of the reasons why it has been so celebrated.
3. The third reason why Geneva has acquired so much celebrity among mankind is the great number of learned and distinguished philosophers and scholars that have from time to time lived there. Switzerland is a republic, and the canton of Geneva is Protestant; and thus the place has served as a sort of resort and refuge for all the most distinguished foes both of spiritual and political tyranny that have risen up in Europe at intervals during the last five hundred years. Geneva was indeed one of the chief centres of the Reformation; and almost all the great reformers visited it and wrote about it, and thus made all the world familiar with it, during the exciting times in which they lived.
Besides this, Geneva has been made the residence and home of a great many moral and political writers within the last one or two centuries; for the country, being republican, is much more open and free than most of the other countries of Europe. Men who have incurred the displeasure of their own governments by their writings or their acts find a safe asylum in Geneva, where they can think and say what they please. All this has tended very strongly to attract the attention of mankind to Geneva, as to a sort of luminous point in respect to moral and political science, from which light radiates to every part of the civilized world.
4. There is one more reason, very different from the preceding, which tends to make Geneva famous, and to draw travellers to visit it at the present day; and that is, it is a great manufacturing place for watches and jewelry—one of the greatest, indeed, in the world. Travellers, in making the tour of Europe—and American travellers in particular—always wish to bring home with them a great number and variety of purchases; and the things that they buy they very naturally desire to buy at the places where they are made. It is not merely that they hope to get them better and cheaper there, but it is a pleasant thought to be associated always afterwards with any object of use or luxury that we possess, that we bought it ourselves at the place of its original manufacture. Thus the gentlemen who travel in Europe like to bring home a fowling-piece from Birmingham, a telescope from London, or a painting from Italy; and the ladies, in planning their tour, wish it to include Brussels or Valenciennes for laces, and Geneva for a watch.
Thus, for one reason or another, immense numbers of people go every year to Geneva, in the course of the tour they make in Europe, either for business or pleasure. It is estimated that the number of these visitors annually is not less than thirty thousand; and the chief streets and quays of the town are marked almost as strikingly by the conspicuousness and splendor of the hotels as Broadway in New York.
The place of departure in France for Geneva is Lyons. If you look upon the map you will see the situation of Lyons on the River Rhone, almost opposite to Geneva. There is a railroad from Paris to Lyons, and so on down the Rhone to Marseilles. But from Lyons up to Geneva—which is likewise situated on the Rhone, at the place where it issues from the Lake of Geneva—there was no railroad at the time of Rollo's visit, though there was one in the process of construction. The party were obliged to travel by diligence on that part of the journey. The diligence is the French stage coach. The diligence leaves Lyons in the evening, and travels all night. As Mr. Holiday arrived at Lyons the evening before, Rollo had the whole of the day to walk about the town before setting out for his evening ride. His father gave him leave to go out alone, and ramble where he pleased.
"The most curious places," said his father, "are on the other side of the river, where the silk weavers live. Notice what bridge you go over, so that you will know it again, and then if you get lost on the other side it will be no matter. All you will have to do is to keep coming down hill till you reach the river, and then look up and down till you see the bridge where you went over. That will bring you home. And be sure to be at home by five o'clock. We are going to have dinner at half past five."
"Then won't it be in season," asked Rollo, "if I am at home by half past five?"
"In season for what?" asked his father.
"Why, to save my dinner," said Rollo.
"Yes," said his father; "it might be in season to save your dinner, but that is not what I am planning to save. I have no particular uneasiness about your dinner."
"Why, father!" said Rollo, surprised.
"I have no wish to have you go hungry," replied his father; "but then if by any chance you happened to be late at dinner, it would be of no great consequence, for you could buy something, and eat it in the diligence by the way. So I was not planning to save your dinner."
"Then what were you planning to save, father?" asked Rollo.
"My own and mother's quiet of mind," replied Mr. Holiday, "especially mother's. If five minutes of the dinner hour were to come and you should not appear, she would begin to be uneasy; and indeed so should I. In such cases as this, children ought always to come before the time when their parents would begin to feel any uneasiness respecting them."
Rollo saw at once the correctness of this principle, and he secretly resolved that he would be at home a quarter before five.
Chapter II.
Planning.
"What part of the diligence are we going to ride in, father?" asked Rollo, as they were seated at dinner.
"In the coupé,"[A] said Mr. Holiday.
"Ah, father!" said Rollo; "I wish you would go on the banquette. We can see so much better on the banquette."
"It would be rather hard climbing for mother," said Mr. Holiday, "to get up to the banquette—such a long ladder."
"O, mother can get up just as easily as not," said Rollo. "Couldn't you, mother?"
"I am more afraid about getting down