Of a surety that is the only course. If one would make provision against
every chance of accident, one must dematerialize. To die is the only way
to secure oneself from fatality.

"Still, it is a wise precaution, I will admit, not to eat of all hedge
fruit because blackberries are sweet. Some day, after the fiftieth
stomach-ache, we shall learn wisdom, my Fidele and I.

"'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' That, I know, comes into the
English gospel.

"Well, I will tell you, I am content to be considered of the first; and
my Fidele is assuredly of the second. Yet did she fear, or I rush in? On
the contrary, I have a little laughing thought that it was the angel
inveighed against the dulness of caution when the fool would have
hesitated.

"Now, it was before the season of the Alps; and the mountain aubergistes
were, for the most part, not arrived at their desolate hill-taverns. Nor
were guides at all in evidence, being yet engaged, the sturdy souls, over
their winter occupations. One, no doubt, we could have procured, had we
wished it; but we did not. We would explore under the aegis of no
cicerone but our curiosity. That was native to us, if the district was
strange.

"Following, at first, the instructions of Herr Baedeker, we travelled and
climbed, chattering and singing as we went, in the direction of the
Montenvert, whence we were to descend upon the Mer de Glace, and enjoy
the spectacle of a stupendous glacier.

"'And that, I am convinced,' said Fidele, 'is nothing more nor less than
one of those many windows that give light to the monsters of the
under-earth.'

"'Little imbecile! In some places this window is six hundred feet thick.'

"'So?' she said. 'That is because their dim eyes could not endure the
full light of the sun.'

"We had brought a tin box of sandwiches with us; and this, with my large
pewter flask full of wine, was slung upon my back. For we had been told
the Hotel du Montenvert was yet closed; and, sure enough when we reached
it, the building stood black in a pool of snow, its shuttered windows
forlorn, and long icicles hung from the eaves.

"The depression induced by this sight was momentary. We turned from it to
the panorama of majestic loveliness that stretched below and around us.
The glacier--that rolling sea of glass--descended from the enormous gates
of the hills. Its source was the white furnace of the skies; its
substance the crystal refuse of the stars; and from its m