I should consider myself to be dishonest if
I attempt to palm off such matter on the public in the pages of a
novel. It is true that I have just returned from Switzerland, and
should find such a course of writing very convenient. But I dismiss
the temptation, strong as it is. _Retro age, Satanas._ No living man
or woman any longer wants to be told anything of the Grimsell or
of the Gemmi. Ludgate Hill is now-a-days more interesting than the
Jungfrau.

The Vavasors were not very energetic on their tour. As George had
said, they had gone out for pleasure and not for work. They went
direct to Interlaken and then hung about between that place and
Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, It delighted him to sit still on some
outer bench, looking at the mountains, with a cigar in his mouth,
and it seemed to delight them to be with him. Much that Mr Grey
prophesied had come true. The two girls were ministers to him,
instead of having him as their slave.

"What fine fellows those Alpine club men think themselves," he said
on one of these occasions, "and how thoroughly they despise the sort
of enjoyment I get from mountains. But they're mistaken."

"I don't see why either need be mistaken," said Alice.

"But they are mistaken," he continued. "They rob the mountains of
their poetry, which is or should be their greatest charm. Mont Blanc
can have no mystery for a man who has been up it half a dozen times.
It's like getting behind the scenes at a ballet, or making a conjuror
explain his tricks."

"But is the exercise nothing?" said Kate.

"Yes; the exercise is very fine;--but that avoids the question."

"And they all botanize," said Alice.

"I don't believe it. I believe that the most of them simply walk
up the mountain and down again. But if they did, that avoids the
question also. The poetry and mystery of the mountains are lost to
those who make themselves familiar with their details, not the less
because such familiarity may have useful results. In this world
things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not
perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests
more than it declares. Look in there, through that valley, where you
just see the distant little peak at the end. Are you not dreaming
of the unknown beautiful world that exists up there;--beautiful, as
heaven is beautiful, because you know nothing of the reality? If you
make your way up there and back to-morrow, and find out all about it,