I
‘The pilgrim,’ says a modern writer, ‘is one who has made an
appointment with his higher self, to meet at some distant date and
place.’ He sets aside for a season his present interests and the call
of work, intent on satisfying that part of his nature which is in
danger of suffering from starvation. Therefore, with staff in hand, he
turns his back on the familiar, to take, in strange places, something
more than a holiday. For the pilgrim is no mere holiday-maker; he is
rather the ideal traveller, journeying towards a noble end, and happy
in this knowledge; and to attain this end he welcomes the prospect of
passing through fire and water.
The circumstances and spirit of this age do not encourage the
pilgrim’s existence; yet enthusiasm and endurance are virtues which do
not perish with the pilgrim. Moreover, even if our ideal traveller is
found no more, many find an ideal form of travel in mountaineering.
There may exist, therefore, some corresponding virtue, some relic of
the pilgrim’s security of mind, by reason of which we may call our
mountaineer a pilgrim.
What manner of man is this new pilgrim who frequents the mountain-side?
Can he indeed be called pilgrim, unless perhaps he is following in the
steps of Boniface of Asti, who first ascended a snowy mountain and
built a chapel for worshippers? Do we ever find the counterpart of
Chaucer’s Knight and Poure Persoun, or even of his Manciple and Miller?
In truth, the perfect mountain pilgrim is as rare as was the genuine
humble-minded visitor of shrines. We must look to the Japanese climbers
for the finest example:--
‘Clad in white, symbolical of the purity to which they aspire,
these ascetic mountaineers make their way, sometimes at the end of
several weeks of walking, to the top of their peak. After worship
at the shrine of their mountain divinity, they withdraw to some
secluded spot.’
Yet even if such a type be exceptional, there may still lie hidden
some of the pilgrim’s worth in the ordinary climber. With the latter,
as with the older pilgrims, we must separate the sheep from the goats.
Pilgrimages were made, not only for spiritual benefit, but also for
boasting, as an excuse for an exchange of masters, and in certain
instances to annoy the king. Nobody climbs, as far as I know, to annoy
any king; but the presence of many men in the Alps and elsewhere is not
easily explained without harsh words. For the climber is notoriously
an unsatisfactory person, not only to the uninitiated, but to his
fellow-enthusiasts.
* * * * *
It is open to all men to become mountain pilgrims. Many, however, in
whom the Hill Difficulty arouses no fear, will be content to stop by
the wayside and wrestle daily with some Apollyon of a ‘rock problem.’
There are some who find all mountains dull which have no wrong way up,
who will talk for hours about a billiard-table traverse, and dismiss
the ascent of Mont Blanc from Chamonix in a few contemptuous words; and
if they succeed in such endeavours, they are for hailing themselves the
lords of all the earth. Had Aristotle witnessed their labours he might
have remarked: ‘Such things even a slave may do’; and if I had the
arrangement of Dante’s Hell I should put them lower than the man who
descended the Breithorn playing on a mouth-organ, although at the time
it seemed that he
‘Tooke out his black trumpe of bras,
That fouler than the Devil was.’
Let such climbers remember that Apollyon can break out into a grievous
rage, and that he is a very subtle thrower of darts, or even stones;
and note that among later Alpine disasters a great majority have
occurred in places of extreme difficulty, to the detriment of a noble
sport.
Yet admitting the existence of pleasure in such unstable equilibrium,
we may still criticise its quality. True pleasure, says the pilgrim,
cannot exist without peace of mind in some degree; and few minds can
remain unruffled on the wall of the Devil’s Kitchen. Indeed, such vain
seeking after pleasure is often, like Bunthorne’s Mediævalism, ‘born
of a morbid love of admiration.’ Christian’s fight with Apollyon was
merely an incident of travel, which no doubt ceased to interest him;
his way was beset by difficulties sufficient to occupy his energy.
Similarly the mountain pilgrim constantly seeks fresh fields for
activity, and will gladly turn his back on the ‘specialists’; for these
men climb as it were for gain, nursing within themselves a spirit of
competition in their struggle with the force of gravity. Nor can they
look with pleasure upon their failures, as can their less ambitious
brethren. It is among the latter that we shall find the spirit of the
mountain pilgrim which caused Kim’s Lama to exclaim:--
‘Oh! the hills and the snow upon the hills!’
The wise man will not wholly judge the mountaineer while he is on the
mountain-side. Some enthusiastic climbers maintain that two moments
alone afford pleasure in an expedition: when the summit is reached,
and when the valley is regained. Now, these words may confound
the sharp-witted philosophers of the plain, but the climber knows
that they contain a world of truth, and that a great joy lies in
retrospection, for which he will endure many hours of tribulation. In
this retrospective attitude we shall find the climber at his best; his
attention is relaxed, and he is free to summon back the greater moments
of the past day. Meet him in the evening on the terrace at Breuil,
when the bowlers have at length ceased their bowling, looking down
at the lights in the hollow below: you will find in him much of the
true pilgrim spirit. Further, the pilgrim proper would be the first to
recognise a fellow-traveller in this mountain wanderer. He sees that
on the mountains also another may meet his higher self. The difference
between the two lies only in environment. To both alike the end is
denied without the struggle, and the generous pilgrim will not trouble
to contrast the excellences of their ways. The two will shake hands in
satisfaction that the old self is no longer in dangerous proximity.
But our generous pilgrim, judging men by his own standard, is a stern
critic, and does not suffer fools gladly.