"I have to-night a packet of back letters from Viège ... but I have really hardly time to read them to-night, I had so many notes to secure when I came from the hills. I walk up every day to the base of the aiguilles without the slightest sense of fatigue; work there all day hammering and sketching; and down in the evening. As far as days by myself can be happy they are so, for I love the place with all my heart. I have no over-fatigue or labour, and plenty of time. By-the-by, though in most respects they are incapable of improvement, I recollect that I thought to-day, as I was breaking last night's ice away from the rocks of which I wanted a specimen, with a sharpish wind and small pepper and salt-like sleet beating in my face, that a hot chop and a glass of sherry, if they were to be had round the corner, would make the thing more perfect. There was however nothing to be had round the corner but some Iceland moss, which belonged to the chamois, and an extra allowance of north wind."
This next is scribbled on a tiny scrap of paper:
"I am sitting on a gray stone in the middle of the glacier, waiting till the fog goes away. I believe I _may_ wait. I write this line in my pocket-book to thank my mother for hers which I did not acknowledge last night. I am glad and sorry that she depends so much on my letters for her comfort. I am sending them now every day by the people who go down, for the diligence is stopped. You may run the chance of missing one or two therefore. I am quite well, and very comfortable--sitting on Joseph's knapsack laid on the stone. The fog is about as thick as that of London in November,--only white; and I see nothing near me but fields of dampish snow with black stones in it."
"I cannot say that on the whole the aiguilles have treated me well. I went up Saturday, Monday and Tuesday to their feet, and never obtained audience until to-day, and then they retired at twelve o'clock; but I have got a most valuable memorandum."
"I do not know if you have got all my letters, fully explaining to you in what way the want of a _single_ letter, on two occasions, did _so_ much mischief--made such havoc in our peace. I think my last Thursday's letter entered on it. We are grateful for many letters--that have come. It was merely the accident of the moment when first by illness and then by precipices we were most anxious--being exactly the moment the letters took it into their heads to be not forthcoming. Not writing so often would only keep us more in the dark, with little less anxiety. Please say if you get a letter every day...."