So some men may be silly
enough to brag in all seriousness about mountain exploits. However, most
lads of twenty learn that it is silly to give themselves airs about mere
muscular eminence; and especially is this true of Alpine
exploits--first, because they require less physical prowess than almost
any other sport, and secondly, because a good amateur still feels
himself the hopeless inferior of half the Alpine peasants whom he sees.
You cannot be very conceited about a game in which the first clodhopper
you meet can give you ten minutes' start in an hour. Still a man writing
in a humorous vein naturally adopts a certain bumptious tone, just as
our friend "Punch" ostentatiously declares himself to be omniscient and
infallible. Nobody takes him at his word, or supposes that the editor of
"Punch" is really the most conceited man in all England. But we poor
mountaineers are occasionally fixed with our own careless talk by some
outsider who is not in the secret. We know ourselves to be a small sect,
and to be often laughed at; we reply by: assuming that we are the salt
of the earth, and that our amusement is the first and noblest of all
amusements.
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