In short, a man may
worship mountains, and yet have a quiet joke with them when he is
wandering all day in their tremendous solitudes.
Joking, however, is, it must be admitted, a dangerous habit. I freely
avow that, in my humble contributions to Alpine literature, I have
myself made some very poor and very unseasonable witticisms. I confess
my error, and only wish that I had no worse errors to confess. Still I
think that the poor little jokes in which we mountaineers sometimes
indulge have been made liable to rather harsh constructions. We are
accused, in downright earnest, not merely of being flippant, but of an
arrogant contempt for all persons whose legs are not as strong as our
own. We are supposed seriously to wrap ourselves in our own conceit, and
to brag intolerably of our exploits. Now I will not say that no
mountaineer ever swaggers: the quality called by the vulgar "bounce" is
unluckily confined to no profession. Certainly I have seen a man
intolerably vain because he could raise a hundred-weight with his little
finger; and I dare say that the "champion bill-poster," whose name is
advertised on the walls of this metropolis, thinks excellence in
bill-posting the highest virtue of a citizen.
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