"In the beginning was the myth. Just as the great god dripped poetry into the souls of the Indians, the Greeks, and the ancient Germans and struggled for expression, so he dictates poetry daily into the souls of children. I did not yet know the names of the lake, the mountains, and the streams of my homeland. Yet I saw the bluish-green, smooth surface of the lake, scattered with little lights, stretching out in the sun, and like a densely woven wreath around it the steep mountains, and in their highest crevices white streaks of snow and small, tiny waterfalls, and at their feet a reclining, bright carpet of fruit trees, huts, and the gray cows of the Alps.
And since my poor, little soul was so empty and silent and full of anticipation, the spirits of the lake and the mountains inscribed every beautiful and daring work of theirs upon it. The motionless cliffs and the steep slopes spoke with pride and reverence of times of which they were descendants and bore the marks. They spoke of when the earth cracked and bent from the need for creation, and from its tortured body it groaned out mountain peaks and ridges."
