Scenic Mount Lowe
[Man's Love for Mountains.]
In all ages of the world man has been a lover of mountains. Ruskin says, "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery," hence it is natural that man should love them and that they should exercise great and potent influence upon him.
Carmel, Ararat, Hor, Horeb, Nebo, Sinai, Olivet, Hermon, Calvary, and others have left—through the literature of the Bible—ineffaceable impressions upon the highest civilizations of the world. All oriental literature abounds in references to mountains, and men were incited to lives of majesty, power, and purity by contemplation of them.
Every student of Japanese literature knows the influence Fuji Yama has had upon the destinies of that thoughtful nation. Life in the mountains of Afghanistan, Beloochistan and Northern India transformed the calm, meditative, pastoral Hindoos into active, impulsive, warlike peoples, whose movements resemble somewhat the fierce storms that play upon their mountain summits or the wild winds that whirl down their canyons.
Robert T. Lincoln and Other Distinguished Visitors in the Snow near Echo Mountain, Mount Lowe Railway.
The mountain traditions of Europe would fill many large volumes, and the folk-lore of the peasantry, as to how they came by their names, makes most fascinating reading.