There are
persons, I fancy, who "do" the Alps; who look upon the Lake of Lucerne
as one more task ticked off from their memorandum book, and count up the
list of summits visible from the Goernergrat without being penetrated
with any keen sense of sublimity. And there are mountaineers who are
capable of making a pun on the top of Mont Blanc--and capable of nothing
more. Still I venture to deny that even punning is incompatible with
poetry, or that those who make the pun can have no deeper feeling in
their bosoms which they are perhaps too shamefaced to utter.
The fact is that that which gives its inexpressible charm to
mountaineering is the incessant series of exquisite natural scenes,
which are for the most part enjoyed by the mountaineer alone. This is, I
am aware, a round assertion; but I will try to support it by a few of
the visions which are recalled to me by these Oberland cliffs, and which
I have seen profoundly enjoyed by men who perhaps never mentioned them
again, and probably in describing their adventures scrupulously avoided
the danger of being sentimental.
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