see Nature through their snow-goggles as
something to be circumvented. That this is the attitude of most
mountaineers is tolerably obvious. And though much that is good has been
written about the Alps, and some that is, from some points of view, even
surpassingly so, most of it is a proof that climbing is a deal easier
than writing. Who in reading books of mountain adventure and exploration
has not come across machine-made bits of description which are as
inspiring as any lumber yard? For my own part, I seldom read my Alpine
author when he goes out of his gymnastic way to express admiration for
the scenery. It is usually a pumped-up admiration. I am inclined to say
that it is unnatural. I am almost ready to go so far as to say that it
is wholly out of place. In my own humble opinion, very little above the
snow-line is truly beautiful. It is often desolate, sometimes
intolerably grand and savage, but lovely it is very rarely. It is
perhaps against human nature to be there at all. There is nothing to be
got there but health, which flies from us in the city. If life were
wholly natural, and men lived in the open air, I think that few would
take to climbing. And yet now it has become a passion with many. There
are few who will not tell you they do it on account of the beauty of the
upper world. Frankly, I do not believe them, and think they are
deceived. I would as willingly credit a fox-hunter if he told me he
hunted on account of the beauty of midland landscapes in thaw-time.

And yet one climbs. I do it myself whenever I can afford it. I believe I
do it because Nature says "You sha'n't." She puts up obstacles. It is
not in man to endure such. He _will_ do everything that can be done by
endurance. For out of endurance comes a massive sense of satisfaction
that nothing can equal. If any healthy man who cannot afford to climb
and knows not Switzerland wishes to experience something of the feeling
that comes to a climber at the end of his day, let him reckon up how
far he can walk and then do twice as much. Upon the Alps man is always
doing twice as much as he appears able to do. He not only scouts
Nature's obstacles, but discovers that the obstacles of habit in himself
are as nothing. For man is the most enduring animal on the earth. He
only begins to draw upon his reserves when a thing becomes what he might
call impossible.

But this is but talk, a kind of preliminary, equivalent in its way to
preparing for an Alpine walk