The world listens with eager attention to anyone who has the requisite training to study such problems with profit, who can tell us what rude remains may be of the time of the Kings, can distinguish between the work of the Republic and the Empire. And amongst the galleries we are glad to meet those who can trace the progress of art and analyse a great picture so as to show the elements drawn from earlier masters which have been crowned and immortalised by the genius of Raphael or Michael Angelo.
But who ever ventured to assert that Rome was the peculiar heritage of the archæologist or the art critic? that the pathetic strength of its world-centring ruins or the glorious beauty of its frescoed palaces was reserved for the few who can explain, or make guesses at, how these things grew, and forbidden to the many who can only appreciate their present charm?
The Alps, we hold, like Rome, are for everyone who has a soul capable of enjoying them. They have been given us by right of birth for the recreation of our minds and bodies, and we refuse to hand over the key of our playground or to accept the tickets of admission which are so condescendingly offered. If anybody—even if a scientific body—calls after us as we pass along the mountain-path, we shall return no other answer than the very sufficient one made under similar circumstances by the hero of Mr. Longfellow's popular ballad. And if, like that unhappy young man, we are doomed to perish in our attempt, I do not fancy our last moments will be seriously embittered by the absence of such consolations as a barometer or a spirit-level might have afforded.
[CHAPTER V].
EAST OF THE BERNINA.
TARASP AND THE LIVIGNO DISTRICT.
—— Comest thou
To see strange forests and new snows
And tread uplifted land?
Emerson.