1872 Letter from Switzerland

In July of 1872 Joseph Warren Healy wrote a letter to his sister Rosina Healy Richardson from Switzerland, describing their work and travels in Europe. Most of the spellings of the Swiss peaks in the Alps are confirmed, but two are not. Joseph Warren Healy was a minister, physician and educator. He was married to Jane Hibbard Clark.

Sab morn, July 28th 1872

My dear Sister:
A leisure Sabbath in this mountainous country suggests the dear ones in our American Switzerland and furnishes opportunity for a half hours communion which I would gladly exchange for the more natural method of “face to face.”

Months have passed since we heard from any of you – months of varied and pleasant experiences to us, opportunities to which we have looked and for which we have labored for many a toilful year. We reached London in Jan and spent some five months in the mission for which we came to Europe, meeting with a good measure of success. During that time we saw much of London – a world in itself – England and Scotland. In July we started on a summer vacation, crossing the channel to Holland; thence to Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium, to Cologne, up the Rhine to Mayence[1] and Heidelberg and Badden Baden in Germany, and are now spending a few weeks in Switzerland. We shall return the last of August to London via Paris. You cannot expect a recital of the events of these months nor a description of the thousand panoramic pictures of beauty and grandeur that have passed before us. Volumes were too limited space and pen inadequate. The Old World is a garden where nation and art seem to have exhausted their skill, a storehouse crowded with relics of historic ages. When young America is as grey-haired as fatherland what a history it will make, and what a world epitomize. Years, not possibility is our need.

Everything here is old and picturesque. Our picture heading will serve as a starting point. This summit, of comparative Alpine height only 5905 feet presents one of the finest terrain pictures. In the rear are seen the immense chain of snow clad Alps, composed of ranges of mountains, the Santis, Glarnish, Todi, Wingelle, Bristense, Uffpipotlist, Titlis, Berner Oberland and Pilatus, with their 128 distinct summits, each of which is named and pointed out to the tourist. At our feet and in distant view may be seen embosomed among hills and skirted with fields, villages, vineyards and sylvan woods. Lake Zug, Lucerne, Sempach, Lauerz and a score of other lakes, charming, resourceful and historic. Here may be seen Tell’s Chapel where Gessler was slain by the Washington of Switzerland, they famous battle field of Morgarten, the valley of Muotta, etc, etc. The picture is incomparable and furnishes food and study for the lover of beauty and history for weeks and months. The picturesque points of this magnificent landscape embrace a circuit of 300 miles and viewed at a glance are overwhelming. The Author of this great picture gives the finest view in the evening or morning, veiling or unveiling one after another the features of this landscape. Hundreds of thousands make a pilgrimage to this Horeb, and tarry for the night on this summit. Half an hour before sunrise sounds the Alpine horn. Hundreds expectant wait for opening Day. A faint streak in the East heralds the promised transfiguration. Like a ball of fire the sun rises from the emerald lake. Moon and stars flee at his coming. The extreme horizon is soon girt with a band of gold. The mountain peaks in succession are tinged with a roseate blush and reveal their individual features, intervening shadows gradually melt away, hills, forest, village, lakes, rivers and lands each reveal themselves. At length the whole scene is flooded with golden light and the immense panorama of light and shade, hill and dale, mountain, lake and landscape crowd upon the vision and inspire the soul with inspiration of the grand and beautiful and bear it upward to Nature’s God, the author of all this wonder and to the soul’s love of which the highest natural beauty is but the expression and prophecy.

Would that you were here to enjoy this feast with us. Hope we shall together enjoy those richer feasts and diviner glories in that land of infinite delight where the sun never sets and the beauty never fades.

Mrs. H and family join in love to you all,
Your brother,
J. W. Healy

Write us in London, 18 Adam Street, Strand, W. C.

[Little did Joseph Warren Healy suspect that his sister Rosina M. Healy Richardson had passed on to those diviner glories nearly two months before on June 4, 1872. She never read this letter he penned, but her children kept and cherished these words on her behalf.]

[1] An alternative spelling for Mainz, Germany on the Rhine River.