In many places the hail and sleet had washed out the traces we trusted as guides. After about four hours, we had passed the most dangerous part, and in another hour we were safely upon the Mer de Glace, which we hailed with delight: Couttet, who reached the point of safety first, jumping on the firm ice and shouting to me "Il n'y a plus de danger, Monsieur." Here we took off the ropes, and drank some more brandy, and then went as hard as we could, jumping across crevasses, which two days before I should have thought awkward, as if they were cart ruts. We reached Chamouni at 8.30 P.m., having been sixteen and a quarter hours without resting. I was not at all tired; the guides thanked me for having given so little trouble, and declared I had gone as well as themselves. Indeed I was providentially unusually clear-headed and cool, and it was not till the danger was over that I felt my nerves give way. There was a good deal of anxiety about us at Chamouni, as it was one of the worst days ever seen here. Hornby had taken all my clothes to Geneva, so I put on a suit of the landlord's, and had some tea, and at 11 P.m. went to bed, not forgetting, you may be sure, to thank God most fervently for this merciful protection, as on the ice I did many times with all my heart.
'On reviewing coolly, to-day, the places over which we passed, and which I shall never forget, I remember seven such as I trust never again to see a man attempt to climb. The state of the ice and crevasses is always shifting, so that the next person who makes the ascent may find a comparatively easy path. We had other dangers too, such as this: twice the guides said to me, "Ne parlez pas ici, Monsieur, et allez vite," the fear being of an ice avalanche falling on us, and we heard the rocks and ice which are detached by the wet falling all about. The view from the top, if the day is fine, is about the most magnificent in the Alps; and as in that case I should have descended easily on the other side, the excursion would not have been so difficult. I hope you will not think I have been very foolish; I did not at all think it would be so dangerous, nor was it possible to foresee the bad weather. My curiosity to see some of the difficulties of an excursion in the Alps is fully satisfied.'
After this adventure, the party broke up, James Patteson returning home with Mr. Hornby, while Coley, who hoped to obtain a Fellowship at Merton, and wished in the meantime to learn German thoroughly in order to study Hebrew by the light of German scholarship, repaired to Dresden for the purpose; revelling, by the way, on the pictures and glass at Munich, descriptions of which fill three or four letters. He remained a month at Dresden, reading for an hour a day with a German master, and spending many hours besides in study, recreating himself with German newspapers at the cafe where he dined, and going to the play in the evening to hear colloquialisms. The picture galleries were his daily enjoyment, and he declared the Madonna di San Sisto fully equal to his anticipations. There is that about the head of the Virgin which I believe one sees in no other picture, a dignity and beauty with a mixture of timidity quite indescribable.'
Returning home for Christmas, Coley started again in January 1851, in charge of a pupil, the son of Lord John Thynne, with whom he was to go through Italy. The journey was made by sea from Marseilles to Naples, where the old regime was still in force. Shakespeare and Humboldt were seized; and after several hours' detention on the score of the suspicious nature of his literature, Mr. Patteson was asked for a bribe.
The climate was in itself a great charm to one always painfully susceptible to cold; and, after duly dwelling on the marvels of Vesuvius and Pompeii, the travellers went on to Rome. There the sculptures were Coley's first delight, and he had the advantage of hints from Gibson on the theory of his admiration, such as suited his love of analysis. He poured forth descriptions of statues and pictures in his letters: sometimes apologising.—'You must put up with a very stupid and unintelligible sermon on art. The genius loci would move the very stones to preach on such a theme. Again: The worst is, that I ought to have months instead of days to see Rome in. I economise my time pretty well; but yet I find every night that I can only do a little of what I propose in the morning; and as for my Italian, an hour and a half a day is on an average more than I give to it. I suffer a good deal from weakness in the eyes; it prevents my working at night with comfort. I have a master every other day. I tried to draw, but it hurt me so much after looking about all day that I despair of doing anything, though I don't abandon the idea altogether.'
There are many letters on the religious state of Rome. The apparently direct supplications to the Saints, the stories told in sermons of desperate sinners—saved through some lingering observance paid to the Blessed Virgin, and the alleged abuse of the Confessional, shocked Patteson greatly, and therewith he connected the flagrant evils of the political condition of Rome at that time, and arrived at conclusions strongly adverse to Roman Catholicism as such, though he retained uninjured the Catholic tone of his mind.
It was art which was the special attraction to Coley of all the many spells of old Rome. He spent much time in the galleries, and studied 'modern painters' with an earnestness that makes Ruskinism pervade his letters.
At Florence, Coley wrote as usual at much length of the galleries, where the Madonna del Cardellino seems to have been what delighted him most. He did not greatly enter into Michel Angelo's works, and perhaps hardly did their religious spirit full justice under the somewhat exclusive influence of Fra Angelico and Francia, with the Euskinese interpretation. The delight was indescribable. He says:—'But I have written again and again on this favourite theme, and I forget that it is difficult for you to understand what I write, or the great change that has taken place in me, without seeing the original works. No one can see them and be unchanged. I never had such enjoyment.' His birthday presents were spent on a copy of the beloved Madonna del Cardellino, of which he says:—'though it does not reach anything like the intensity of feeling of the original, is still a very excellent painting, and will always help to excite in my imagination, and I hope to convey to you, some faint image of the exceeding beauty of this most beautiful of all paintings.'
Readers chiefly interested in the subsequent career of the missionary would feel interrupted by the overflowing notes on painting, sculpture and architecture which fill the correspondence, yet without them, it is scarcely possible to realise the young man's intense enthusiasm for the Beautiful, especially for spiritual beauty, and thus how great was the sacrifice of going to regions where all these delights were unknown and unattainable. He went on to Venice, where he met a letter which gave a new course to his thoughts, for it informed him that the deafness, which had long been growing on his father had now become an obstacle to the performance of his duties as a Judge, and announcing his intention of retiring.
In the fulness of his heart he wrote:—
'Venice, Hotel de la Villa: May 2, 1851.
'My dearest Father—I have not been in Venice an hour yet, but little did I expect to find such news waiting for me as is contained in Jem's letter, and I can lose no time in answering it. It is indeed a heavy trial for you, that, in addition to many years of constant annoyance from your deafness, you should be obliged now, in the full vigour of your mind, and with the advantage of your experience, to give up a profession you so thoroughly delight in. I don't deny that I have often contemplated the possibility of such a thing; and I had some conversation with Uncle John last winter in consequence of my fancying your deafness was on the increase, though the girls did not perceive it; I hope with all my heart I was wrong. I told him what I know you feel, that, painful as it will be to you to retire from the Bench, if any dissatisfaction was expressed at your not hearing sufficiently what passed, you would choose rather to give up your seat than to go on under