nd language divine--the effect on their minds, there are
exceptional instances of noble and self-imposed dumbness. Not the
dumbness which is practising the old device of--

Reculer pour mieux sauter,

but a genuine silence of humility before the mysteries of nature. We
sigh in vain for a glimpse of these exceptional souls. They resist our
best climbing qualifications and are as inaccessible as the mists above
our highest tops. And we prefer, naturally, our talking companions,
those who shrink not from the task of ready interpretation.

"The Alps form a book of nature as wide and mysterious as Life," says
Frederic Harrison in his _Alpine Jubilee_, in one of those clear-cut and
well-measured passages of mountain homage, which are balm to the
tormented hearts of those who feel themselves afloat on the clouds of
mystery. "To know, to feel, to understand the Alps is to know, to feel,
to understand Humanity."

I am not at all sure this is true; it is probably entirely untrue.
Humanity--in the abstract--is apt to suffer an enforced reduction in
magnitude and importance when seen from Alpine heights. But it is one of
those phrases which we hug instinctively as the bearers of food for
hungry hearts. We do not want Leslie Stephen's reminder of metaphysical
riddles, "Where does Mont Blanc end and where do I begin?" We do not
want to be paralysed by philosophic doubt for the rest of our mortal
lives on the hills. We prefer to be stirred to emotional life by those
who are transported by love of beauty to the realms of unreason.

In the autobiography of Princess Helene Racowitza--the tragically
beloved of Ferdinand Lassalle--there is evidence of such transport. She
has but reached one of the commonplaces of tourist ventures. From the
Wengern Alp she watches the play of night and dawn on the Jungfrau:

Again and again the glory of God drew me to the window. In
the immense stillness of the loneliness of the mountains, the
thundering of the avalanches that crashed from time to time
from the opposite heights was the only sound. It was as if one
heard the breath of God, and in deepest reverence one's heart
stood almost still.

She beholds the moon pale and the summit of the Jungfrau glitter in "a
thousand prismatic colours" from the rising sun:

Once more I was shaken to the depths of my soul, thankful that
I was allowed to witness this and to enjoy it thus. A great joy
leapt up in my heart