I
‘The pilgrim,’ says a modern writer, ‘is one who has made an appointment with his higher self, to meet at some distant date and place.’ He sets aside for a season his present interests and the call of work, intent on satisfying that part of his nature which is in danger of suffering from starvation. Therefore, with staff in hand, he turns his back on the familiar, to take, in strange places, something more than a holiday. For the pilgrim is no mere holiday-maker; he is rather the ideal traveller, journeying towards a noble end, and happy in this knowledge; and to attain this end he welcomes the prospect of passing through fire and water.
The circumstances and spirit of this age do not encourage the pilgrim’s existence; yet enthusiasm and endurance are virtues which do not perish with the pilgrim. Moreover, even if our ideal traveller is found no more, many find an ideal form of travel in mountaineering. There may exist, therefore, some corresponding virtue, some relic of the pilgrim’s security of mind, by reason of which we may call our mountaineer a pilgrim.
What manner of man is this new pilgrim who frequents the mountain-side? Can he indeed be called pilgrim, unless perhaps he is following in the steps of Boniface of Asti, who first ascended a snowy mountain and built a chapel for worshippers? Do we ever find the counterpart of Chaucer’s Knight and Poure Persoun, or even of his Manciple and Miller?
In truth, the perfect mountain pilgrim is as rare as was the genuine humble-minded visitor of shrines. We must look to the Japanese climbers for the finest example:—
‘Clad in white, symbolical of the purity to which they aspire, these ascetic mountaineers make their way, sometimes at the end of several weeks of walking, to the top of their peak. After worship at the shrine of their mountain divinity, they withdraw to some secluded spot.’
Yet even if such a type be exceptional, there may still lie hidden some of the pilgrim’s worth in the ordinary climber. With the latter, as with the older pilgrims, we must separate the sheep from the goats. Pilgrimages were made, not only for spiritual benefit, but also for boasting, as an excuse for an exchange of masters, and in certain instances to annoy the king. Nobody climbs, as far as I know, to annoy any king; but the presence of many men in the Alps and elsewhere is not easily explained without harsh words. For the climber is notoriously an unsatisfactory person, not only to the uninitiated, but to his fellow-enthusiasts.
It is open to all men to become mountain pilgrims. Many, however, in whom the Hill Difficulty arouses no fear, will be content to stop by the wayside and wrestle daily with some Apollyon of a ‘rock problem.’ There are some who find all mountains dull which have no wrong way up, who will talk for hours about a billiard-table traverse, and dismiss the ascent of Mont Blanc from Chamonix in a few contemptuous words; and if they succeed in such endeavours, they are for hailing themselves the lords of all the earth. Had Aristotle witnessed their labours he might have remarked: ‘Such things even a slave may do’; and if I had the arrangement of Dante’s Hell I should put them lower than the man who descended the Breithorn playing on a mouth-organ, although at the time it seemed that he
‘Tooke out his black trumpe of bras,
That fouler than the Devil was.’
Let such climbers remember that Apollyon can break out into a grievous rage, and that he is a very subtle thrower of darts, or even stones; and note that among later Alpine disasters a great majority have occurred in places of extreme difficulty, to the detriment of a noble sport.
Yet admitting the existence of pleasure in such unstable equilibrium, we may still criticise its quality. True pleasure, says the pilgrim, cannot exist without peace of mind in some degree; and few minds can remain unruffled on the wall of the Devil’s Kitchen. Indeed, such vain seeking after pleasure is often, like Bunthorne’s Mediævalism, ‘born of a morbid love of admiration.’ Christian’s fight with Apollyon was merely an incident of travel, which no doubt ceased to interest him; his way was beset by difficulties sufficient to occupy his energy. Similarly the mountain pilgrim constantly seeks fresh fields for activity, and will gladly turn his back on the ‘specialists’; for these men climb as it were for gain, nursing within themselves a spirit of competition in their struggle with the force of gravity. Nor can they look with pleasure upon their failures, as can their less ambitious brethren. It is among the latter that we shall find the spirit of the mountain pilgrim which caused Kim’s Lama to exclaim:—
‘Oh! the hills and the snow upon the hills!’
The wise man will not wholly judge the mountaineer while he is on the mountain-side. Some enthusiastic climbers maintain that two moments alone afford pleasure in an expedition: when the summit is reached, and when the valley is regained. Now, these words may confound the sharp-witted philosophers of the plain, but the climber knows that they contain a world of truth, and that a great joy lies in retrospection, for which he will endure many hours of tribulation. In this retrospective attitude we shall find the climber at his best; his attention is relaxed, and he is free to summon back the greater moments of the past day. Meet him in the evening on the terrace at Breuil, when the bowlers have at length ceased their bowling, looking down at the lights in the hollow below: you will find in him much of the true pilgrim spirit. Further, the pilgrim proper would be the first to recognise a fellow-traveller in this mountain wanderer. He sees that on the mountains also another may meet his higher self. The difference between the two lies only in environment. To both alike the end is denied without the struggle, and the generous pilgrim will not trouble to contrast the excellences of their ways. The two will shake hands in satisfaction that the old self is no longer in dangerous proximity. But our generous pilgrim, judging men by his own standard, is a stern critic, and does not suffer fools gladly.