The Swiss Summer Quotes

“When at last she did see “big mountains”, far away on the horizon but nevertheless appearing to shut off the rest of the world by their immense height, a true “buzzle” or youthful thrill ran down her spine. There at last were their snowy ridges and peaks, unseen by her for twenty-odd years but unchanged—the Giants of the Oberland, and she leant far out of the window to gaze at them, while the soft warm wind of Switzerland’s lowlands blew her curls across her eyes, and vague half-forgotten longings swept into her soul.”
― Stella Gibbons, The Swiss Summer

“When, that night, the airline coach set them down in London, and for the first time in three months she smelled the thick, sour air of a city and saw the faces of the people hurrying home, she longed with all her heart to tell them of the world up there in the mountains. She wanted more than anything to make them see the chalet, and the Silberhorn up in the blue sky; to let them hear the secret, sunny voice of the stream, and breathe the slow wind that blows down across the flowers from the high alps.”
― Stella Gibbons, The Swiss Summer

“She wondered what would happen to Kay; she tried to imagine her as she might appear in ten years from now: married to a wealthy business executive and settled in one of those little Surrey towns whose prettiness and prosperity are a by-word; driving her car from shop to shop along the narrow High Street with a cigarette always held in the corner of her mouth and her guinea-gold hair beginning to fade under the infliction of frequent permanent waves, while her body had already begun to thicken prematurely into the lines of middle age. She would have two coarse little sons whom she managed well, and her husband would respect her and think her a good sort. And she will have quite forgotten, thought Lucy, that once during a Swiss summer she looked into the eyes of Love.”
― Stella Gibbons, The Swiss Summer

“Presently she sat down between the roots of a giant larch tree to eat her luncheon of sausage and tough freshly-buttered bread, while the breeze, already chilled by autumn, made the softest imaginable sighing in the huge branches extending above her head. Her little nose twitched pleasurably as it inhaled the smell of larch needles, withered white clover, and the aromatic and bluish-black berries of juniper bushes, and she was as happy as her nose; surrounded by the natural beauty whose terrors, ever present to the animals and birds, were hidden from her; and far from the wickedness and misery of mankind. She thought of nothing, as she sat between the larch roots and ate the delicious coarse food, and ever and again the wild, delicately scented wind just touched her calm face.”
― Stella Gibbons, The Swiss Summer