Where are the eagles and the trumpets? Buried beneath some
snow-deep Alps. Over buttered
scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping
multitudes Droop in a hundred
A.B.C.'s. T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot 'Cooking Egg'.
Butforme,
theAlps and their peoplewerealikebeautiful in their snow, and
their humanity; and I wanted, neither for them nor
myself, sight of any thrones in heaven but the rocks, or of
any spirits in heaven but the clouds. John Ruskin ^3 The Stones ofVenice, vol.i, ch.2.
We were eight daysincoming hither from Lyons; thefour last in crossing
the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely
inhabitants! Horace, 4th Earl of Orford Walpole Letter to RichardWest. Collected in P Cunningham
(ed) The Letters of
HoraceWalpole, Fourth Earl of Orford (1857^9).
