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THE ALPS
DESCRIBED BY W. MARTIN CONWAY
PAINTED BY A. D. McCORMICK
THE ALPS
AGENTS IN AMERICA
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
[Illustration: 1. HAYMAKERS IN THE VAL MAGGIA. The loads carried by
the women are enormous in size, what they are in weight I don't know;
but many of them are larger than those shown in the picture. One load I
measured was twice the height of the woman.]
THE ALPS
DESCRIBED BY W. MARTIN CONWAY
PAINTED BY A. D. McCORMICK
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1904
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW 1
CHAPTER II
HOW TO SEE MOUNTAINS 22
CHAPTER III
HOW MOUNTAINS ARE MADE 46
CHAPTER IV
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF ALPS 72
CHAPTER V
THE MOODS OF THE MOUNTAINS 101
CHAPTER VI
MOUNTAINS ALL THE YEAR ROUND 128
CHAPTER VII
TYPES OF ALPINE PEAKS 151
CHAPTER VIII
PASSES 177
CHAPTER IX
GLACIERS 202
CHAPTER X
ALPINE PASTURES 226
CHAPTER XI
THE HUMAN INTEREST 251
CHAPTER XII
VOLCANOES 274
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Haymakers in the Val Maggia _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Bern from the Schaenzli 2
3. View of the Bernese Alps from the Gurten, near Bern 4
4. The Pier at Scherzligen, Lake of Thun--Evening 6
5. Melchior Anderegg 8
6. Storm coming up over Lake of Lucerne 10
7. Looking up Valley towards Zermatt from near Randa 14
8. Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau from Scherzligen, near Thun 16
9. Lucerne and Lake from the Drei Linden 20
10. The Jungfrau from Interlaken 24
11. Fiescherhorn and Lower Grindelwald Glacier 30
12. The Castle of Chillon 34
13. The Corpus Christi Procession to the Hofkirche of St. Leodegar 38
14. Cloud-burst over Lucerne 44
15. At Meiringen 48
16. Storm Clouds over the Lake of Thun 52
17. Vitznau and Lake of Lucerne 54
18. The Falls of Tosa, Val Formazza 60
19. Looking over Lucerne from the Drei Linden 70
20. Francois Devouassoud 72
21. At Bignasco 76
22. Looking down the Aletsch Glacier from Concordia Hut 82
23. Asconia--on Lago Maggiore 84
24. Locarno from the Banks of the Lake 88
25. Pallanza--Evening 90
26. The Madonna del Sasso, Locarno 92
27. Locarno at Sunset, and North End of Lago Maggiore 100
28. Moonlight in the Val Formazza from the Tosa Falls 104
29. A Mountain Path, Grindelwald 108
30. The Aletschhorn 112
31. The Grosser Aletsch-Firn from Concordia Hut 116
32. Thunderstorm breaking over Pallanza 124
33. The Wetterhorn 130
34. Maerjelen Alp 134
35. Lower Glacier and Grindelwald Church 142
36. Grindelwald looking towards the Wengen Alp 146
37. Rimpfischorn and Strahlhorn from the Riffelberg 150
38. The Matterhorn, Twilight 156
39. Weisshorn and Matterhorn from Fiescheralp 160
40. Aiguille Verte and Aiguille du Dru from the Chamonix Valley 164
41. Boden and Gorner 166
42. The Breithorn from Schwarz See 172
43. The Lyskamm 174
44. The Road from Vitznau to Gersau 180
45. Amsteg in the Reussthal 188
46. The Dent Blanche from the Riffelberg 192
47. The Village of Soldimo, at the Entrance of the Val Maggia 198
48. Flueelen at end of Lake of Uri, South Arm of Lake of Lucerne 200
49. Furggen Glacier Icefall 206
50. The Gletscherhorn from the Pavilion, Hotel Cathrein, close to Concordia
Hut 208
51. The Trugberg 210
52. Pallanza--Sunset 212
53. Kranzberg--Rotthalhorn--and Jungfrau: Sunset 214
54. Maerjelen See and Great Aletsch Glacier 220
55. The Castle of Zaehringen-Kyburg, Thun 226
56. Chalets and Church. Riederalp 234
57. Evening in Zermatt 236
58. Bern from the North-West 238
59. Looking down the Val Formazza from Tosa 240
60. In the Val Bavona 242
61. In the Val d'Aosta 246
62. Chatillon, Val d'Aosta 260
63. A Corner of the Town of Altdorf 262
64. Ponte Brolla 266
65. In the Val d'Aosta 268
66. In the Woods of Chamonix 270
67. In a Garden at Locarno 272
68. Pilatus and Lake of Lucerne from the Slopes of the Rigi 276
69. Montreux, Lake of Geneva 280
70. After the Sunset 290
THE ALPS
CHAPTER I
THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW
John Ruskin, in a fine and famous passage, describes the effect of a
first view of the Alps upon a young and sensitive mind. He was at
Schaffhausen with his parents. "We must have spent some time in
town-seeing," he writes, "for it was drawing towards sunset when we got
up to some sort of garden promenade--west of the town, I believe; and
high above the Rhine, so as to command the open country across it to the
south and west. At which open country of low undulation, far into
blue--gazing as at one of our own distances from Malvern of
Worcestershire, or Dorking of Kent,--suddenly--behold--beyond! There was
no thought in any of us for a moment of their being clouds. They were
clear as crystal, sharp on the pure horizon sky, and already tinged with
rose by the sinking sun. Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought
or dreamed,--the seen walls of lost Eden could not have been more
beautiful to us; not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred
Death. It is not possible to imagine, in any time of the world, a more
blessed entrance into life, for a child of such a temperament as mine."
Many a lad or man has felt a similar awakening when the snowy Alps
first smote upon his vision, though none has ever so nobly expressed the
emotion. It is a feeling not to be forgotten in after life. All who love
mountains have begun to love them from some remembered moment. We may
have known the hills from infancy, but to know is not necessarily to
love. It is the day of awakening that counts. To me the hills were early
friends. Malvern of Worcestershire was my childish delight. I climbed
Snowdon at the age of seven, and felt the delight that arises from
standing high and gazing far. But the mountains as beautiful things to
look at came later. Well do I remember the year when I was at last going
to the Alps. A vague feeling of expectation and suspense pervaded the
summer term--the unknown was in the future and hovered there as
something large and bright. What would the great snow mountains look
like? That was the abiding question. One June day I was idly lying prone
upon a grassy bank, watching piled masses of cumulous cloud tower in the
east with the afternoon sun shining splendidly upon them. Could it be
that any snow mountains were really as fine as clouds like these? I
could not believe it.
[Illustration 2: BERN FROM THE SCHAeNZLI. The seat of the Swiss
Government. The Rathhaus, a modern "old Catholic church," in centre of
picture. The Bernese Oberland Mountains in heat-haze at top.]
At last the day came when the sea was crossed and the long railway
journey (how long it seemed!) was accomplished. We approached Olten. The
Oberland ought to have appeared, but only rain fell. We reached Bern,
and drove up to the little country village of Zimmerwald, where my
friends were staying; still there was no distant view--nothing but
wooded and green hills around, that reminded me of other views, and
revealed no such startling novelty as I was awaiting. One day passed and
then another. On the third morning the sun rose in a sky perfectly
clear. When I looked from my window across the green country, and over
the deep-lying lake of Thun, I saw them--"suddenly--behold--beyond!"
Jungfrau, Moench, Eiger, and the rest, not yet individuals for me, not
for a long time yet, but all together, a great white wall, utterly
unlike any dream of them that had visited me before, a new revelation,
unimaginable, indescribable, there they stood, and from that moment I
also entered into life.
Returned to my school friends in due season, I thought to tell them of
this new and splendid joy that had come to me, but a few attempts cured
me of any such endeavour. It was impossible. My words fell upon deaf
ears, or rather I had no words. What I said failed to raise a picture in
their minds, as what had before been said to me had failed. I have never
repeated the attempt; I shall not do so now. The prophet who saw the
vision of the Almighty could speak only by aid of types and shadows. The
great revelations of nature's majesty are not describable. Who that had
never seen a thunderstorm could learn its majestic quality from
description? Who can enter into the treasures of the snow by way of
words? The glory of a great desert must be seen to be realised. The
delicate magnificence of the Arctics none can translate into language.
We may speak of that we do know, and testify that we have seen, but no
one receives our testimony, because words cannot utter the essential
facts.
[Illustration: 3. VIEW OF THE BERNESE ALPS FROM THE GURTEN, NEAR BERN.]
In writing about the Alps, therefore, we write and paint primarily to
remind those who know; to suggest further visions of a like character to
those they possess within themselves. Even the greatest master of
descriptive writing can only manifest his mastership by knowing what to
omit and where to stop. "Suddenly--behold--beyond!" That is enough for
those who know. For those who do not know, no words can embody and
transmit the unfelt emotion.
Since the first day when I saw the snowy mountains, I have seen them
again and again in all parts of the world, and have come to know them
from above as well as from below. I have penetrated them in all
directions and grown to understand the meaning of their smallest details
of couloir, crevasse, ice-fall, cornice, arete, and bergschrund. It has
not been all gain. Gladly would some of us be able to shed our knowledge
of detail, if it were but for a moment, and once again behold the great
wall of white as ignorantly as we first beheld it--a thing, vast,
majestic, and above all mysterious--unapproachable as the clouds--a
region not for men but fairies--the rose-clad tops of the mountains
where dance the spirits of the dawn. Fairest of all is ever the first
vision, not completest. Later we know more, we understand more, we may
even come to love more, but the first vision of a young man's love is
surpassed by no future splendour, and the first glory of a mountain view
never comes again.
Doubtless there may exist some people who, even if they had been smitten
by the glory of the mountains in the age of their own most abounding
youthful powers of body, would not have been attracted to climb them;
yet such folks must be rare. Those who first see mountains in the years
of their solid maturity naturally escape the attraction. But most young
and healthy individuals as naturally desire to climb as they do to swim
or to wander. The instinct of man is to believe that joy is somewhere
else than where he stands. "Dort wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glueck."
It is not true, but life is not long enough to teach us that it is
not--and fortunately, else were half our efforts quenched in the
impulse.
To see round, over, and beyond--that is the natural desire of all. We
want to go everywhere, to behold everything. Who would not rush to visit
the other side of the moon, were such journey possible? If Messrs. Cook
were to advertise a trip to Mars, who would not be of the party? "To see
round, over, and beyond"--that is a common human instinct, which
accounts for the passion of historical and scientific investigation, for
the eagerness of politicians, for the enthusiasm of explorers and
excavators, for the inquisitiveness of psychical societies, for the
prosperity of fortune-tellers, and for the energy of mountaineers. What!
There is a height looking down on me and I cannot attain it? There is a
mountain wall around me and I cannot look over it? Perish the thought!
There is an historical limit behind which I know nothing about the human
race? Give me a spade, that I may dig out some yet earlier ancestor and
discover something about him. There is an unmapped region at the south
pole? What is my Government made of that it does not send forth an
expedition to describe it?
[Illustration: 4. THE PIER AT SCHERZLIGEN, LAKE OF THUN--EVENING. The
Niesen on the right.]
In face of the unknown all men are of one mind. They cannot but
endeavour to replace ignorance by knowledge. What is true of the mass is
true to some extent of each individual. There exists in the unit the
same tendency at all events as in the multitude. Each man wants to see
what he has not seen, to stand where he has not stood, to learn more
than he knows. In the presence of mountains this desire urges him
upward. He does not start as a mountaineer intending to climb, and
climb. He starts for a single expedition, just to see what high peaks
and glaciers are like. The snowy regions beheld from a distance puzzle
him. Evidently they are not like the places he is familiar with. He will
for once go and take a nearer look. He will climb somewhither and get a
sight all round. Little does he suspect what the outcome of his venture
may be. A week ago he was perhaps laughing at the tattered-faced
climbers he met, as mad fools, going up to mountain-tops just to come
down again and say they had been there. Of such folly he at any rate
will never be guilty. Climbing has no fascinations for him; he is merely
going to have a look at the white world, so that he may know what it is
that he hears people talking about--their corridors and their couloirs,
crevasses, snow-bridges, seracs, and bergschrunds.
So he hires a guide and sets forth for the Breithorn, perhaps, or some
such high and safe-reputed peak. He hits upon a day when the weather
turns bad. Winds buffet him; rain and snow drench him; he labours
through soft snow; he is bewildered by fog. If the sun shines for a few
moments, it is only long enough to scorch the skin off his face and
ensure him a few days of great discomfort to follow. He has no view from
the summit. He returns wearied out to his inn.
[Illustration: 5. MELCHIOR ANDEREGG. Born 1828. A celebrated Alpine
guide; with the late Sir Leslie Stephen made many first ascents,
including the Rympfischhorn, Alphubel, Oberaarhorn. Also well known for
his wood-carving.]
Yes!--and thenceforward the alpine fever masters him. He is caught and
makes no effort to escape. His keenest desire is to be off once more
into those same high regions--once more to feel the ice beneath his
feet--once more to scramble up clean crags fresh from nature's
sculpturing and undefiled by soil or vegetation. With each new ascent he
becomes eager for more. The summers are all too short for his
satisfaction. He goes home to read about other people's climbs, to study
maps and guide-books, to lay out schemes for future seasons. Dauphiny,
the Graians, the Engadine and Tirol--he must give a season or seasons to
each. Thus is the climber fashioned out of an ordinary man.
Each new votary of the peaks in turn experiences the same sudden
conversion, expects to be able to explain his new delight to his lowland
friends, and in turn discovers the same impossibility. He learns, as we
all have learned, that the delight is not translatable into words; that
each must experience it for himself and each must win his own entrance
into the secret alone. The most we can do is to awaken the inquisitive
sense in another, who beholds the visible evidence of our enjoyment and
wonders what its source may be. In that fashion the infection can be
spread, and is spread with the extraordinary rapidity that the last
half-century has witnessed.
What climber does not recall the enthusiasm of his first seasons? the
passionate expectation of the coming summer, the painful awaiting for
the moment when his foot should once again crunch the ice-corn of the
glacier beneath its hob-nailed sole? Gradually that enthusiasm passes
and is replaced by a settled mood of calmer, but no less intense,
satisfaction. But does the aesthetic delight in the beauty of the
mountains remain through all these experiences undimmed? Not always. In
the first view of them it is the beauty of the snowy peaks, of the great
white walls, that appeals to the eye. Ignorant of the meaning of every
detail, the details are almost unseen. It is the whole that is beheld in
the glory of its whiteness. The wonder of the silver snow beyond the
green and beneath the sky invades the mind of every new spectator. Small
need be our surprise that unsophisticated, semi-civilised peoples have
always believed the snowy regions to be part of the other world--the
home of ghosts and fairies, or of demons and dragons. "Not more awful,
round heaven, the walls of sacred Death," says Ruskin in the passage
above quoted, thereby manifesting how close in its instincts is the
sympathy between genius and the purely natural man. Almost universal is
the feeling aroused by a first sight of a great snowy range that it is
unearthly. Mystery gathers over it. Its shining majesty in full
sunlight, its rosy splendours at dawn and eve, its pallid glimmer under
the clear moon, its wreathed and ever-changing drapery of cloud, its
terrific experiences in storm, all these elements and aspects strike the
imagination and appeal broadly to the aesthetic sense. Nor are they ever
quite forgotten even by the most callous of professional mountaineers.
[Illustration: 6. STORM COMING UP OVER LAKE OF LUCERNE. Sketch made from
Flueelen.]
But with increase of experience on the mountains themselves come
knowledge and a whole group of new associations. A man does not climb a
mountain without bringing some of it away with him and leaving something
of himself upon it. Returned to the level and looking back, he does not
see his peak as before. Every feature of the road he traversed is
remembered, and he instinctively tries to fit the features to the view.
That velvet slope above the trees is the stony tract up which he toiled
before dawn and where he stumbled in the fitful lantern-light. That grey
band beside the glacier is the moraine, whose big rocks were unstable
beneath his tread. That glacier--how slippery it was before the sun
smote it! There are the crevasses that made his track so devious; and
there began the snowfield so hard and pleasant under foot in the early
hours, so toilsome to wade through as the day advanced. In the upper
part of the mountain all the little features, that seemed unimportant
from below, take on a new meaning. He finds it hard to identify
different points. Can that tiny thread of snow be the broad gully up
which so many steps had to be cut? He looks at it through a telescope,
and the actual traces of his staircase become visible. The mountain
judged by the scale of remembered toil grows wonderfully in height. The
eye thus trained begins to realise and even to exaggerate the vast scale
on which peaks are built. But along with this gain in the truthful sense
of scale comes the loss of mystery. The peak which was in heaven is
brought down to earth. It was a mere thing of beauty to be adored and
wondered at; it has become something to be climbed. Its details have
grown intelligible and interesting. The mind regards it from a new
aspect, begins to analyse its forms and features, and to consider them
mainly in their relation to man as a climber. As knowledge grows this
attitude of mind develops. Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.
The nature of the climbing on peaks not yet ascended can to some extent
be estimated from below. The inquiry naturally arises, How shall that
peak be climbed? Which is the way to attack it? The eye traces possible
routes and foresees probable difficulties. It rejects or modifies
proposed ways. It observes all kinds of structural details. It notes the
path of avalanches and the signs of falling stones. It concentrates its
attention upon ice-falls and endeavours to thread the maze of their
seracs. Thus the intelligence replaces the aesthetic sense and the
enjoyment of beauty becomes or is liable to become dimmed.
The longer a climber gratifies his instincts and pursues his sport, the
larger becomes his store of reminiscences and the greater his
experience. If he confines his attention to a single range of mountains
such as the Alps, he is almost always in sight of mountains he has
climbed and glaciers he has traversed. Each view shows him some route he
has once pursued, some glacier basin he has explored, some pass he has
crossed. The labyrinth of valleys and the crests of successive ridges do
not puzzle him. He knows how they are grouped and whither they lead.
Beyond those mountains is the Zermatt valley; that peak looks down on
Zinal; that col leads to Saas. Thus there grows in him the sense of the
general shape and arrangement of the country. It is no longer a tangled
chaos of heights and depths, but an ordered anatomy, formed by the
action of definite and continuous forces. So far as his knowledge
extends this orderliness is realised. He has developed a geographical
sense. That in its turn poses problems for solution. He notes some
corner of his map where a deep-lying valley is intricately fitted in
amongst ridges which he has seen from without. He becomes desirous to
visit it, so that he may complete the map in his own understanding.
When he goes to a new district he cannot but be eager to obtain a
geographical grasp of its form and arrangement. The instinct that
desires to see round corners and over walls has now new food to grow on.
In a fresh district the geographical problem is always fascinating, but
in one that has been explored by no mountaineer before, its fascination
is overwhelming, especially if the explorer be a surveyor and
cartographer, as I can attest. To see the sketch-map of a previously
unsurveyed country grow upon the paper is an intense satisfaction. The
aspect of every peak gives rise to a twofold problem. Can it be climbed,
and if so by what route? How should it be depicted on the map? These
questions are ever present. The solution of them is the thought of every
hour, the first point of interest in every view. As it is with the
explorer, so to a less extent is it liable to be with every climber; for
all climbers are to some extent explorers, even though they are but
exploring previously described and mapped territory. It is new to them,
at any rate, and that is the important fact. Climbers, when they begin
to exhaust a district, move to another in hunger after the unknown.
[Illustration: 7. LOOKING UP VALLEY TOWARDS ZERMATT FROM NEAR RANDA.
Theodulhorn and Furggengrat in distance.]
Hence, as the seasons go by, it happens that the aesthetic interest,
which was at first the climber's main delight, begins to fade. If he be
a man of scientific interests it is liable to an even quicker
evanescence than if he be not, for problems of geological structure, or
of botanical distribution, or of glaciology and the like, are a keen
source of intellectual enjoyment. At length, perhaps, the day comes when
the loss is felt. There is a gorgeous range of snow mountains with every
effect of cloud and sunshine that the eye can desire, displayed about
and upon them, yet the climber finds with dismay that his heart is cold.
The old glory has vanished from the scene and the old thrill is an
unfelt emotion. What is the matter? Have his eyes grown dim? Has he lost
the faculty of delight? Is he growing old? Whatever the cause, the
effect is painful in the extreme. It is one that many of us have felt,
especially towards the close of a long and successful climbing season,
or extensive journey of exploration. There is but one remedy--to quit
the mountains for a while and attend to the common business of life.
When winter months have gone by and summer is again at hand, the old
enthusiasm is liable to return. Sooner or later the true mountain-lover
will begin to starve for sight of the snows.
When age comes upon him and his limbs grow stiff and his heart
enfeebles, the desire to climb may slacken, but the love of mountains
will not diminish. Rather will it take on again something of its first
freshness. Then it was purely objective; now it becomes objective once
more. The desire to obtain and to possess passes away. We know what it
is like to be aloft. We foresee the toil with no less, perhaps with even
greater clearness of prevision than we foresee the triumph and the
delight. We have learnt the secret of the hills and entered into the
treasures of the snow. Now we can afford to rest below and gaze aloft.
If the mystery of our first views can never return, the glow of
multitudinous memories replaces it not unworthily. The peaks have become
inaccessible once more. They again belong to another world, the world of
the past. The ghosts of our dead friends people them, and the ghosts of
our dead selves. When the evening glow floods them at close of day it
mingles with the mellow glories of the years that are gone. The old
passionate hopes and strivings, the old disappointments and regrets, the
old rivalries, and the old triumphs, vaguely mingling in a faint regret,
beget in the retired mountaineer an attitude of peace and aloofness. He
feels again the incommunicable and indescribable delight that thrilled
him at the first; but now, though it is less passionate, less
stimulating, less overwhelming than of yore, it is mellower and not a
whit less beautiful and true.
[Illustration: 8. EIGER, MOeNCH, AND JUNGFRAU, FROM SCHERZLIGEN, NEAR
THUN.]
One precious thing beside memory the retired mountaineer possesses,
which he who has never climbed must lack: it is knowledge. The keenest
mountain-lover who never climbed does not really know the nature of what
he is looking at. Even Ruskin, the most gifted mountain-lover that never
climbed, constantly reveals in his writings failures to understand. The
true scale of things was never apparent to his eye. Like all beginners,
at first underestimating, he presently came to overestimate the size of
cliffs and ridges. Ability to see things truly is a great possession.
None but an experienced mountaineer can ever so see mountains. He
instinctively recognises the important features and distinguishes them
from the unimportant. He is conscious of what is in front and what
behind. He does not mistake foreshortened ridges for needle-pointed
peaks. A range of mountains is not a wall to him but a deep extending
mass. He feels the recesses and the projections. He has a sense of what
is round the corner. The deep circuits of the hills are present in his
imagination even when unbeheld. He knows their white loneliness. The
seen end of a glacier-snout implies to him all the unseen upper course
and expanse of its gathering ground. Thus every view to him is instinct
with implications of the unseen and the beyond. Such knowledge well
replaces the mystery of his youthful ignorance. If time has taken
something away, it has amply repaid the theft. It is not his debtor. He
may mingle now with the crowd who never quit the roads, and no external
sign shall distinguish him from them, but the actual difference between
them is fundamental. For the snows are beyond their ken and belong to
the same region as the sky; but they are within his area; they form part
of his intellectual estate; they hold his past life upon their crests.
Where the lowlander looks and wonders, the mountaineer possesses and
remembers, nor wonders less for being able to realise the immensity of
the mass of beauteous detail that unites to form a mountain landscape.
To attain such ripe fruition, however, does not come to every man,
nor to any without taking thought. The most callous person will feel
some thrill from a first view of a snowy range, but it may soon become a
commonplace sight, its beauty soon be unperceived. Only by taking
thought can this be avoided. Unless we can learn from year to year to
see more, and more recondite, beauties in nature, we are yearly losing
sensitiveness to nature's beauty. There is no standing still in this
matter. We must advance or we must go back. A faculty must be used or it
will atrophy. It is not enough to go to the mountains in order to grow
in their grace. Sensitiveness to beauty increases in the man who looks
for beauty and greatly desires to find it. Pure nature is always and
everywhere beautiful to the eye that knows how to see. The perception of
the beauty of a thing is, however, not the same as the mere sight of a
thing. Many may behold a view, and of them all only one may see beauty
in it. He does so because he brings with him the innate or trained
capacity for seeing that kind of beauty. But how is that capacity to be
acquired or emphasised by training? This question might be answered in a
volume and even then the answer would be incomplete and would not compel
assent from all. We can only afford a single phrase here for the
reply--"by taking thought." If, when a sight produces on the spectator
the thrill that comes from the recognition of beauty, he will
concentrate his attention upon it and remember it (as a youth remembers
the beautiful face of a girl he has merely passed in the street), and if
he will be on the alert to find it again and yet again, he will
assuredly obtain by degrees a completer understanding and a more
sensitive recognition of that particular kind of beauty. He will find
more sides and aspects of it than he at first suspected. It will lead
him on to a larger knowledge and a wider sympathy. His aesthetic capacity
will be increased and his powers of delight continuously developed. All
this in the case of mountain-beauty will come to him, not merely because
he wanders among or upon mountains, but because being there he retains
towards them a definite attitude of mind,--an attitude, however, which
is not that of the climber, and which mere climbing and exploration do
not by themselves encourage. He that looks for structure will find
structure; he that studies routes will find routes. To find beauty it is
beauty that must be searched for as a prospector searches for gold. More
priceless than gold, beauty abundantly rewards those who find her. With
that guerdon in mind let the mountaineering reader ask himself, "Hast
thou entered into the treasures of the snow?"
[Illustration: 9. LUCERNE AND LAKE FROM THE DREI LINDEN. Pilatus with
storm breaking over mountain and town.]