Helen Maria Williams, A Tour in Switzerland (1798), Vol. I, 59-61 (Broadview: 373). 

The Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen.  The sublime process? (evocative awe)

. . . whence, just [60] sheltered from the torrent, it bursts in all its overwhelming wonders on the astonished sight. That stupendous cataract, rushing with wild impetuosity over those broken, unequal rocks, which, lifting up their sharp points admidst its sea of foam, disturb its headlong course, multiply its falls, and make the afflicted waters roar—that cadence of tumultuous sound, which had never till now struck upon my ear—those long feathery surges, giving the element a new aspect--that spray rising into clouds of vapour, and reflecting the prismatic colours, while it disperses itself over the hills--never, never can I can forget the sensations of that moment! when with a sort of annihilation of self, with every past impression erased from my memory, I felt as if my heart were bursting with emotions too strong to be sustained.--Oh, majestic torrent! which hast conveyed a new image of nature to my soul, the moments I have [61] passed in contemplating thy sublimity will form an epocha in my short span!—thy course is coeval with time, and thou wilt rush down thy rocky walls when this bosom, which throbs with admiration of thy greatness, shall beat no longer!

1) Overwhelmed Time: suddenness; Perception: inadequate Perception: defamil. Dimensions: excessive; Movement: excessive Anthrop: agency (rocks) Conflict (rocks/water) Anthrop: afflicted Sound: excessive   Movement: imitative   2) Self transformed Memory: permanent Time: present Self: preempted Body: emotion excessive   3) Novel insight Anthrop: apostrophe Nature: insight Personal time: turning point Natural time: enduring Body: emotion, pulse Personal time: contrast

Phasic process, implications:
1) Overwhelmed (emotions imitate/represent natural process as personal process)
     Primarily defamiliarizing objects implicated (rocks, waters, sound, spray)
     Blurred boundary of inanimate/animate
     Organs of perception active only
     Language: phrase structures replicate process observed
2) Self transformed (suspension of prior interpretive schemata)
     Time: articulates now/forever relation
     Previous self unprepared, irrelevant (erased)
     Bodily arousal, unprecedented emotion
3) Novel insight (realization of what was implicit in 1st and 2nd phases)
     Anthropism: participant in natural power (nature teaches human)
     Time: brief/enduring relocated to universal realm, exemplary

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Rhine Falls:

Rhine Falls. From Johann Louis Bleuler, Voyage pittoresques aux bords du Rhin (Schaffhausen: L. Bleuler, 1821 - c.1845). (private collection). Shows the scaffold provided as a viewing platform below Laufen Castle on the left bank of the Rhine.	Rhine Falls, showing Laufen Castle on the right above the Falls. Photo: DSM.

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Ascent to the St. Gotthard Pass via Devil's Bridge

Ascent to the St. Gottard Pass, Vale of Reuss	Devil's Bridge (1800)	Andermatt, Vale of Usuren

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Document prepared October 12th 2011