“Though a still small voice speaks from earth and sky” (MS VIII; Works [1903])—1 Kings 19:12 (KJV).

“Sabbath eve is sinking low” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—According to Ruskinʼs cousin, Mary Richardson, the Ruskins arrived in Schaffhausen on a Sunday, 9 June 1833 (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 35).

“And a wreath of mist curled faint and far, / Where the cataract drove his dreadful war” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—The distant cataract is the Rhine Falls, which in his 1838 guidebook John Murray III calculated to lie “about 3 miles below Schaffhausen” (Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 19). The family viewed the falls before breakfast on the morning of June 10, the day after their Sabbath sighting of the Alps described in this poem. Mary Richardson declared the view “second only to the Alps in grandeur” (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 37).

In their guidebooks, both Murray and J. G. Ebel note that early morning, the time chosen by the Ruskins, was among the most advantageous—“when the Iris floats within the spray”, as Murray rhapsodizes—and Ebel urging that the spectacle also “must be seen at the fall of day, or even by moon‐light . . . when the whole country around is involved in darkness, and the cascade alone is illumined”. The most dramatic vantage point for viewing the falls when traveling from from Schaffhausen, Murray goes on, was to “to hire a boat from thence . . . , and descend the river, which already forms a succession of rapids, by no means dangerous under the guidance of a boatman accustomed to the river. When the increased celerity of the current and the audible roar announce that the skiff is approaching the falls, the steersman makes for the l. [left] bank, and lands his passengers under the picturesque castle of Lauffen, situated on a high rock overlooking the fall, within the Canton of Zurich. It is occupied and rented by an artist who speaks English, and charges 1 franc admission for each person. The advantage of approaching the fall on this side is, that nothing is seen of it until it is at once presented in its most magnificent point of view, from the little pavilion perched on the edge of the cliff immediately above it [the Fischetz]. Its appearance from the opposite side of the river is tame in comparison, and the first impression from thence, made by the finest cataract in Europe, will most probably prove disappointing”. Ebel agrees, but adds that, “as the cataract should be seen on every side, it is advisable to take a boat at Fischetz, and to go to the castle of Im-Wart”, since, despite its prospect on the cascade presenting “the greatest disadvantage”, “the passage is by no means dangerous, notwithstanding the waves are agitated” and “the tourist will be pleased at seeing the miniature representation of the cataract in the camera obscura that is placed in the boat” (Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 19; Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 222–24). The Ruskins followed this advice, Mary commenting that, after viewing the falls “from a gallery that projects over the river”, they crossed to the opposite side of the river and below the falls for another but “inferior” prospect that lost “grandeur”, but that they did investigate a “miniature representation . . . in camera obscura” (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 37).

“The Alps the Alps,—Full far away / The long successive ranges lay” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—In her travel diary for 9 June 1833, Mary Richardson recorded the familyʼs first sighting of the Alps, glimpsed unexpectedly during their walk after evening tea, on their first day in Schaffhausen: “Went out to walk, passed one of the town gates and ascended some steps where are public walks. At an opening of the trees which we suddenly came to, we saw for the first time the snowy summits of the Alps, illuminated by the rays of the sun, which was nearly setting and cast a pink shade on the snowy peaks; it is the grandest and most sublime sight I have ever seen, no picture, no panorama can give the least idea of these magnificent mountains. The beautiful landscape near us through which the Rhine winds with its richly cultivated fields and vineyards, formed a fine contrast with the snowy mountains in the distance” (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 36). In Praeterita, Ruskinʼs recollection of the facts about this first sighting are similar, but dramatized as fixing the “destiny” of his lifeʼs work (Ruskin, Works, 35:115‐16).

British guidebooks and travel accounts of the 1830s do not mention a view of the Alps from Schaffhausen; the town is invariably associated mainly with the approach to the Rhine Falls. Panoramic views of the Alps are instead associated with Zürich, farther south. John Murray III, for example, highlights these views in the same summer weather at sunset that captured the Ruskins: “[o]ne of the most pleasing features about Zurich is its promenades and points of view. The best of them is decidedly the Catsʼ Bastion (Katzen Bastei), an elevated mound commanding a delightful view of the town, lake, and distant Alps. . . . Nothing can be more delightful than the view at sunset from this point, extending over the smiling and populous shores of the beautiful lake to the distant peaks and glaciers of the Alps of Glarus, Uri, and Schwytz, tinged with the most delicate pink by the sinking rays” (Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 26).

See also the verse fragment in MS VIII, entitled by Ruskin as “Schaffhausen”, which seems to set the stage for the same moment of first sighting the Alps; and see the poem, “Passing the Alps”, along with its associated glosses, for the poetic tropes that Samuel Rogers and others used in connection with first sightings of the Alps.

“Of the far hills and Rigis crest” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—The Rigi is a mountain in the Schwyzer Alps, a range that along with the Glarus Alps lies most directly south of Schaffhausen.

Despite Ruskinʼs clue of identifying a specific peak, one must bear in mind that he composed this poem in retrospect; and Roger Cardinal believes “it is hard to be sure which actual mountains the young Ruskin saw [from Schaffhausen]. It is possible he was looking more to the south‐east at the Alpstein [near Lake Constance] and Churfirsten ranges [both part of the Appenzell Alps], which would have caught the rosy light of the setting sun. Directly to the south lie the higher Central Alps [i.e., the Schwyzer and Glarus Alps], beyond the famous peak of the Rigi” (see also the narrator's claim in “It was a wide and stretchy sweep of lovely blue champaign” of having “read, that the snowy summit of the Mont Titlis, was visible from Strasburg”, a summit that lies directly south of Rigi); “further west”, Cardinal goes on, “lies the even loftier Jungfrau‐Mönch‐Eiger complex [the Bernese Alps]. However, Ruskinʼs ultimate peak, Mont Blanc, is located much further to the south‐west and is invisible from Schaffhausen. It was two summers later, at the Col de la Faucille above Geneva, that Ruskin witnessed the magnificent chain of the westernmost Alps ‘as the confirming view of the first view of the Alps from Schaffhausen’ which sealed his vision of ‘the Holy Land of my future work and true home in this world’”, as he characterized these sightings decades later in Praeterita (Cardinal, “Ruskin and the Alpine Ideal”, 173 n. 2; and see Ruskin, Works, 35:167).

See Ruskinʼs Knowledge of the Alps for the developing specificity of his understanding of the mountains. According to letter 34 of Fors Clavigera, dated October 1873, Ruskin later believed “I first saw the Bernese Alps from above Schaffhausen” (Ruskin, Works, 27:637). This perspective, while not impossible according to Cardinal, perhaps reflects a desire to graft a sighting of the western Alps, in the direction of Lake Geneva, Mont Blanc, and the Chamonix Valley, onto the sighting of the Rigi in the Central Alps, which rises above Lake Lucerne—thus anticipating the “confirming view” celebrated in Praeterita

Writing in 1834, Ruskinʼs memory of sighting the Rigi in particular from Schaffhausen may be accurate, although he may already have constructed the memory based on later experience during the tour. The ride up to highest peak of the massif, the Rigi Kulm, was a popular tourist attraction, which the Ruskins undertook on 25 July 1833 (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 94). The popularity of the excursion, according to John Murray III, owed “less to its height . . . than to its isolated situation”. “Separated from other mountains”, and surrounded by lakes on three sides, “in the midst of some of the most beautiful scenery of Switzerland, [the summit] . . . allows an uninterrupted view from it on all sides, and [is] convert[ed] . . . into a natural observatory”, commanding “a panorama hardly to be equalled in extent and grandeur among the Alps” (Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 46).

“But look once on the Alps by the sunset quiver / And think on the moment thenceforward for ever” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])—Compare “The Alps” by Samuel Rogers (1763–1855): “Who first beholds” the Alps “instantly receives into his soul / A sense, a feeling that he loses not, / A something that informs him ʼtis an hour, / Whence he may date henceforward and forever!” (Rogers, Italy, 29–30). Rogersʼs first view of the Alps was likewise panoramic, but from a position in western Switzerland, on a height above Lake Morat and Lake Neuchâtel (Hale, ed., The Italian Journal of Samuel Rogers, 144).

See, in the apparatus for the “Account”, The Influence of Rogersʼs Poetry on Ruskinʼs Planned Extension of the Composite‐Genre Travelogue to Italy and Switzerland. The quotation from Rogersʼs “The Alps” indicates that Ruskin was influenced by the elder poet in specific imagery and language. He was also influenced by Rogers in structuring his sequence of sections of the “Account”; see again The Influence of Rogersʼs Poetry on Ruskinʼs Planned Extension of the Composite‐Genre Travelogue, and also the contextual glosses for “Passing the Alps”. By placing this key allusion to Rogersʼs “The Alps” in “There is a charmed peace that aye” [“The Alps from Schaffhausen”], Ruskin was situating the allusion at the center of a cluster focused on the first sighting of the Alps. The cluster is discernable in Ruskinʼs Plan for Continuation of the Account of a Tour on the Continent, in which the present poem may have been intended to occupy the position denoted in the list as “The Alps”—the title in itself alluding to Rogersʼs poem.