We rubbed our eyes when we read these heterodox sentiments in such a quarter. Mr. Mathews was, perhaps, an Alpine historian rather than a writer of descriptive prose, and he does not lend himself to the elegant extract, though he is the author of some very quotable Alpine sketches. To Mr. Freshfield we owe, amongst other good things, one short passage as dramatic as anything in Alpine literature, the passage in which he describes the discovery of Donkin’s last bivouac on Koshtantau. The Field was even more emphatic:
“What is not true is that the pioneer sportsmen who founded the Alpine Club had exceptional insight into the moods of the snow. One or two of them, no doubt, struck out a little literature as the result of the impact of novel experiences upon naïve minds.... On the whole, in spite of their defects, their machine-made perorations and their ponderous jests, they brought an acceptable addition to the existing stock of the literature of adventure.... But they had their limitations, and these were rather narrow. They dealt almost exclusively with the externals of mountaineering experience; and when they ventured further their writing was apt to be of the quality of fustian. Their spiritual adventures among the mountains were apt to be melodramatic or insignificant. Perhaps their Anglo-Saxon reticence prevented themselves from ‘letting themselves go.’... At all events there does remain this notable distinction—that, while the most eloquent writings of the most eloquent Alpine Club-man are as a rule deliberately and ostentatiously objective, the subjective literature of mountains—the literature in which we see the writer yielding to the influence of scenery, instead of lecturing about its beauties, existed long before that famous dinner party at the house of William Mathews, senior, at which the Alpine Club was founded. England, as we have said, contributed practically nothing to that literature.”
We have quoted this passage at some length because it expresses a novel attitude in direct contradiction to the accepted views sanctified by tradition. We do not entirely endorse it. The article contains proof that its writer has an intimate knowledge of early Alpine literature, but one is tempted to fancy that his research did not survive the heavy period of the ’eighties, and that he is unacquainted with those modern writers whose work is distinctly subjective. None the less, his contention suggests an interesting line of study; and in this chapter we shall try briefly to sketch the main tendencies, though we cannot review in detail the whole history, of Alpine literature, a subject which requires a book in itself.
The mediæval attitude towards mountains has already been discussed, and though we ventured to protest that love of the mountains was not quite so uncommon as is usually supposed, it must be freely admitted that the literature of the Middle Ages is comparatively barren in appreciation of mountain scenery. There were Protestants before Luther, and there were men such as Gesner and Petrarch before Rousseau; but the Middle Ages can scarcely rob Rousseau of the credit for transforming mountain worship from the cult of a minority into a comparatively fashionable creed. Rousseau’s own feeling for the mountains was none the less genuine because it was sometimes coloured by the desire to make the mountains echo his own philosophy of life. Rousseau, in this respect, set a fashion which his disciples were not slow to follow. The mountains as the home of the rugged Switzer could be made to preach edifying lay sermons on the value of liberty. Such sentiments were in tune with the spirit of revolt that culminated in the French Revolution. A certain Haller had sounded this note long before Rousseau began to write, in a poem on the Alps which, appearing in 1728, enjoyed considerable popularity. The author is not without a genuine appreciation for Alpine scenery, but he is far more occupied with his moral, the contrast between the unsophisticated life of the mountain peasant and the hyper-civilisation of the town. Throughout the writings of this school which Haller anticipated and Rousseau founded, we can trace an obvious connection between a love for the untutored freedom of the mountains and a hatred of existing social conditions.
It is, therefore, not surprising to find that this new school of mountain worship involved certain views which found most complete expression in the French Revolution. “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.” This, the famous opening to The Social Contract, might have heralded with equal fitness any mountain passage in the works of Rousseau or his disciples. Perhaps these two sentiments are nowhere fused with such completeness as in the life of Ramond de Carbonnière, the great Pyrenean climber. We have not mentioned him before as he took no part in purely Alpine explorations. But as a mountaineer he ranks with De Saussure and Paccard. His ascent of Mont Perdu, after many attempts, in 1802, was one of the most remarkable climbing exploits of the age. He invented a new kind of crampon. He rejoiced in fatigue, cold, and the thousand trials that confronted the mountaineer in the days before club-huts. His own personality was singularly arresting; and the reader should consult The Early Mountaineers for a more complete sketch of the man than we have space to attempt. Ramond had every instinct of the modern mountaineer. He delighted in hardship. He could appreciate the grandeur of a mountain storm while sitting on an exposed ledge. He lingers with a delight that recalls Gesner on the joy of simple fare and rough quarters. He is the boon companion of hunters and smugglers; and through all his mountain journeys his mind is alert in reacting to chance impressions.
But his narrative is remarkable for something else besides love for the mountains. It is full of those sentiments which came to a head in the French Revolution. Mountain description and fierce denunciations of tyranny are mingled in the oddest fashion. It is not surprising that Ramond, who finds room in a book devoted to mountaineering for a prophecy of the Revolution, should have played an active part in the Revolution when it came. Ramond entered the Revolutionary Parliament as a moderate reformer, and when the leaders of the Revolution had no further use for moderate reformers he found himself in the gaol at Tarbres. Here he was fortunately forgotten, and survived to become Maître des Requêtes under Louis XVIII. Ramond is, perhaps, the most striking example of the mountaineer whose love for mountains was only equalled by his passion for freedom. In some ways, he is worthier of our admiration than Rousseau, for he not only admired mountains, he climbed them. He not only praised the simple life of hardship, he endured it.
Turning to English literature, we find much the same processes at work. The two great poets whose revolt against existing society was most marked yielded the Alps a generous measure of praise. It is interesting to compare the mountain songs of Byron and Shelley. Byron’s verse is often marred by his obvious sense of the theatre. His misanthropy had, no doubt, its genuine as well as its purely theatrical element, but it becomes tiresome as the motif of the mountain message. No doubt he was sincere when he wrote—
“I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me, and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the sum
Of human cities torture.”
But as a matter of actual practice no man lived more in himself, and instead of becoming a portion of his surroundings, too often he makes his surroundings take colouring from his mood. His mountains sometimes seem to have degenerated into an echo of Byron. They are too anxious to advertise the whole gospel of misanthropy. The avalanche roars a little too lustily. The Alpine glow is laid on with a heavy brush, and his mountains cannot wholly escape the suspicion of bluster that tends to degenerate into bombast. This is undeniable, yet Byron at his best is difficult to approach. Freed from his affectations, his verse often rises to the highest levels of simple, unaffected eloquence. There are lines in The Prisoner of Chillon with an authentic appeal to the mountain lover. The prisoner has been freed from the chain that has bound him for years to a pillar, and he is graciously allowed the freedom of his dungeon—a concession that may not have appeared unduly liberal to his gaolers, but which at least enabled the prisoner to reach a window looking out on to the hills—
“I made a footing in the wall,
It was not therefrom to escape.
But I was curious to ascend
To my barr’d windows, and to bend
Once more upon the mountain high
The quiet of a loving eye.