The Argosy — page 322: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

304 The Baths of Gastein. ‘Rest, for one thing. Rest to body and mind. Want of rest 1s the cause of half the existing maladies. Men do too much now-a-days. Those who have work, don’t know how or where to stop. ‘Those who have none, but live an idle life, use up their strength in gaiety and dissi- pation. It is impossible to be moderate in this age. Hence the reason that brain-power is diminishing.” There was a good deal, doubtless, in these views: but the doctor himself was an example of doing too much work rather than too little. He appeared to be in all places at the same time. If you wanted him you had but to take up your station in any part of Gastein, and before five minutes had expired you would certainly catch sight of the coat and yellow umbrella flying round the comer, or darting off at mght angles: and then you might fly after him, and take your chance of catching him. One night he came up to point out from the balcony the effect of the landscape in the light of a full moon. The moon that night was unusually brilliant, the stars bright and flashing, seeming far higher and larger than they appear in our heavier English atmosphere. Here veritably the moon reigned Queen of Night, shedding her gentle beams upon all creation. The sight was indeed a rare one: never to pass out of memory. . All the wildness and grandeur of the place was before us softened but not concealed by the pale, silvery light. The moun- tains stood forth in dense, black masses, their shapes distinctly outlined; greater and more solemn than under the broad, strong sunshine. Here and there the village houses stood out, small and white. The snow, visible only from the ponderous gold mountain to the right, gleamed and sparkled as if fairies were in possession, preparing for the revels of a midnight banquet. What would it be to be amongst them at this witching hour : to look down upon the world from the great mountain, and watch the play of the moonbeams upon the hundred glaciers ! Here and there the shadows of the slopes were deep, and the woods looked black as Erebus; so dense and ghostly that each moment you fancied to behold a phantom group come issuing from its shades with noiseless tread and pace sepulchral. The village lay before us in repose; a few lights gleaming from windows as Sole signal of life. No sound to break the tomb-like still- ness but that of the mighty torrent, with its constant, eternal roar: un- ceasing for centuries past, and for aught we know, for centuries to come. Its white mass of water shone out in the m€onlight, and the spray could be seen distinctly ascending, catching the beams upon its num- berless particles, and reflecting them in the varied colours of the rain- bow. It was a scene of enchantment; and those who gazed might fancy themselves genii of the night, for no other living sound, no other living beings were evident. The silver thread of the. snow aan down the gold mountain until lost by the intervening hill. Here and there —_) ECOMRDIC OOOKS. EO Pr