Next to Mont Blanc in abiding reputation, the Matterhorn takes rank among Alps by universal consent. We may regard it as the best example of pyramidal mountains. Four-square it stands upon its mighty base, fronting the four cardinal points of the compass, each face divided from its neighbour by a clearly-defined ridge or rock arête. As Mont Blanc the dome, so the Matterhorn in turn displays a form adopted by man for some of his grandest architectural efforts, the pyramids of Egypt. If the dome best expresses the idea of soaring aloft, when seen from without, the pyramid best expresses the idea of eternal repose and endurance without end. Geologists may tell us that even the Matterhorn is a passing phenomenon, that the frosts are daily causing it to disintegrate, and that thousands of tons of rock fall at frequent intervals down its sides. Climbers may describe its near aspect as ruinous, and we may know these statements to be true. None the less the mountain beheld as a whole, from even a moderate distance, seems to belie them. It appears to be from everlasting and to everlasting. It incorporates the ideal of permanence. We conceive it as belonging not to an age but to all time. Were it mathematically four-square, and its faces true planes of even slope, that would be its chief effect, that and the sense of mass and grandeur inseparable from an object of such visibly huge dimensions. But Nature has fashioned it subtly and endowed its faces and ridges with curves most delicate and refined. To its appearance of mass and endurance it adds a grace so exquisite, an uplift so imposing, that these qualities almost take the first place in the impression produced upon the beholder. Seen from the north-east it appears to best advantage. Towards Breuil it shows a more massive front. Its recondite western face, only visible from high snow-fields, displays precipices more appalling and a general aspect of more savage grandeur. But with singular good fortune for the unathletic traveller, it manifests its incomparable grace to perfection towards the easily accessible north-east, and 50,000 people go there annually to worship at its Riffel shrines. They may approach with no more devotional feeling than the average pilgrim manifests at Lourdes, but the fact that they go is homage to the reality of the emotion which many have actually felt in that glorious presence. The poetic brain has exhausted itself in efforts to find comparisons with living creatures whereby to describe it. Best is Ruskin's choice of a rearing horse. Traces of the neck clothed with thunder, of the mane-fringed crest with cloud streamers for hair, even of the sharp contrasting angle of the folded fore-leg, can be traced in the natural composition; but it is rather the might and spirit of the thing—its combination of wildness, force, and grace—that give aptness to this fetch of similitude.
In writing of the Matterhorn one can make an assumption that would be impossible with any other mountain:—that most readers can recall a vision of its form to their minds. Let me make that demand upon the present reader. Observe then how beautifully the double curve of the left hand or Théodule ridge, first convex, then concave, is terminated and contrasted with the sudden jags of the shoulder, and then taken up and continued again convex to the summit. How the right-hand or Stockje ridge, convex above, drops with a larger sweep and a more astounding ultimate steepness, to be again interrupted by a lower and more jagged shoulder, and again continued downward by the magnificent white convex curve, which, in its turn drooping into concave, leads the eye away to the broad foundation. No less essential than the outline to the total effect are the two white névé basins that lie below the faces and steepen upwards to ice-slopes leading to crags that have all the appearance of cliffs. The importance to the composition of the third or middle shoulder—the Shoulder par excellence of climbers—should also be insisted on, but space does not here admit a lengthier analysis. The reader will find no difficulty in pursuing the investigation for himself.
WEISSHORN AND MATTERHORN FROM FIESCHERALP
The four-sided pyramid, of which we have chosen the Matterhorn for type, is a rarer form than the three-sided, perhaps the commonest class of fully developed peak. Here again there cannot be a moment's hesitation in the choice of a representative mountain, for of such the Weisshorn is beyond question the finest and most famous in the Alps. What mountain-lover has not beheld it, towering gracefully and superbly aloft before him as he descended the upper reaches of the Rhone valley on some bright August day? Westward it opposes a face of rock and is a less gorgeous object to look upon. But its other two faces with their glacial robe are brilliant under all illuminations. What gives it distinction among the multitude of mountains similarly formed is the grace of its slender and long drawn-out ridges. Each of these sharp arêtes, beheld from most points of view, drops very steeply from the spear-tipped summit; then gradually levels off to a shoulder, and so leads the eye down to the massive foundation that supports the whole. Slenderness above, massive strength below—such is the effective contrast that Nature provides.
Another famous peak, the Jungfrau, appears from Interlaken almost as graceful as the Weisshorn; but its beauty is really of another order, and depends far more upon the brilliancy of the curdled surface of the snow, and its division between ice-falls, rocks, and ice-slopes, than upon the outline of the peak itself or the form of its ridges. For pure grace of pyramidal form the Aletschhorn surpasses the Jungfrau, but the better-known peak has advantages of position and of grouping to which we shall presently refer.
Pyramidal peaks lend themselves kindly to embellishment by banners of cloud. Often we behold great sheets of white mist waving away from their ridges. The sharp definition and marble-like permanence of the mountain forms an admirable offset to the softness and inconstancy of the cloud, which is not merely ever varying the form of its outlines, but is throughout in constant and often swift motion under the dominion of a furious gale. The sense of violent agitation high aloft thus impressed upon the eye, well associates itself with an idea of rugged resistance proper to high peaks and splintered ridges. The slenderer the pyramid and the sharper its arêtes, so much the better does it serve as flagstaff for a flying cloud.
Best of all, however, for this purpose are the rock aiguilles, which never seem quite complete, never fully manifest the astonishing boldness of their structure, except when they are in turn concealed and revealed by mists that form and fade and form again—now cutting them off from all visible connection with the earth and almost seeming to lift them into the heavens, now half-hiding them and half-revealing, now as it were smoking away from their summits like steam from a volcano, now offering a white background to their rugged mass, now overshrouding and empurpling them with shadows stolen from the wardrobe of Night. They lack the dignity of the broader peaks, these needle rocks, and few of them really deserve (save from a climber's standpoint) to be called peaks at all. Generally they are only buttress pinnacles of greater mountain masses. Yet a tall and well-planted aiguille always possesses marked individuality of its own, which more than compensates for lack of volume and altitude. By its form it attracts the attention of the eye away from large but less wonder-evoking mountains. Thus it makes itself the centre of a view and is remembered when its larger neighbours are forgotten. More than any other kind of peak an aiguille depends for effect upon the character of its foundation and the place where it is planted. The Aiguille du Géant is, perhaps, the most remarkable monolith shaft in the Alps, and has attained no little fame. But its fame is due to the difficulty of scrambling up it. For sheer impressiveness of effect from a distance it cannot enter into serious competition with the Aiguille du Dru. The actual summit-shaft of the Dru is not really remarkable for slenderness. Its sides are not the plumb vertical cliffs that the Géant can show. But the foundations of the Dru carry its lines down, and the supporting masses seem expressly piled together for no other purpose than to lift the slender-seeming peak as far aloft as possible. The Dru, moreover, though actually an appanage of the Verte, is so situated as to be seen alone and admirably set off by glacier or wooded foregrounds from several easily accessible and convenient positions. Instead of standing aloof like the Géant, it peers down into the valley and takes an interest in human affairs. It is there to signal the sunset with its flaming beacon, and to glow like a brand from the furnace in the presence of the dawn. The departing traveller turns back to it for a last look, and the returning votary of the Alps is impatient to pass the corner beyond which he well knows that it will come into view. It is one of a class, the aiguilles of Chamonix, but it possesses a marked individuality of aspect and it transcends all its neighbours and rivals. They may be harder to climb, but it looks as precipitous and inaccessible as any, and, after all, the appearance is the essential element for a lover of the picturesque. There is much more that might be said about aiguilles, their value for contrast with other forms, their essentially subordinate, almost parasitic, character, and so forth, but our space has narrow limits and we must pass on.
AIGUILLE VERTE AND AIGUILLE DU DRU FROM THE CHAMONIX VALLEY