THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE[A]
[Footnote A: From a letter to his mother, written from the monastery
in 1739.]
BY THOMAS GRAY
We took the longest road, which lies through Savoy, on purpose to see
a famous monastery, called the Grande Chartreuse, and had no reason to
think our time lost. After having traveled seven days very slow (for
we did not change horses, it being impossible for a chaise to go fast
in these roads), we arrived at a little village, among the mountains
of Savoy, called Echelles; from thence we proceeded on horses, who are
used to the way, to the mountain of the Chartreuse.
It is six miles to the top; the road runs winding up it, commonly not
six feet broad; on one hand is the rock, with woods of pine-trees
hanging overhead; on the other, a monstrous precipice, almost
perpendicular, at the bottom of which rolls a torrent that, sometimes
tumbling among the fragments of stone that have fallen from on high,
and sometimes precipitating itself down vast descents with a noise
like thunder, which is made still greater by the echo from the
mountains on each side, concurs to form one of the most solemn, the
most romantic, and the most astonishing scenes I ever beheld.
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