Soon, however, under necessity’s spell, the reluctant cerebellum (where, I am told, our balance-bump is to be found) becomes used to the smooth uncompromising walls, and the Climber can sally qualmless forth to tackle Dolomites or Cumberland climbs.
Beauty, Romance, Adventure; Help to others; Use, both for mind and body, to oneself: I hope the Climber has said enough to show our Cinderella forth for What she really is. And, gentle reader, you will not grumble if her champion, for reasons not obscure, can display no betraying blazon on his shield. Having championed his fair, and been acclaimed victor in the lists, he rides triumphant forth to kneel before his sovran liege—the British Public. ‘What is your name, that I may honour you?’ ‘Sire, if you will permit me, I will present you with my card.’ Which done, he vanishes, leaving not a wrack behind save the white pasteboard with the two words upon it:
ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟΣ ΤΙΣ
THE MOUNTAINS OF YOUTH
BY
ARNOLD H. M. LUNN
(Balliol)
IX. THE MOUNTAINS OF YOUTH
‘Fire made them, earth clothed them, man found them,
Our playmates the princes of hills,
Last uttered of time, and love-fashioned,
Of a fullness of knowledge impassioned
For freedom: boy-hearts, royal wills,
Sun nursed them, wind taught them, frost crowned them.
Light o’er them, life with them, peace round them,
They have waited in masterless strength
For the moment of mortal awaking,
When bright on new vision upbreaking
Far beacons of freedom, at length
Art saw them, hope sought them, youth found them.’
Geoffrey Winthrop Young.
Few haunters of the Alps can have altogether escaped the dreary ceremonies in some mountain Tabernacle, manufactured perhaps from a drawing-room whose windows reveal malicious glimpses of the snows that suggest a more acceptable service. Few but would recognise the discourse meandering on from the inevitable text, that cry of the soul to great hills afar, which constant quotation cannot wholly mar, to the final application which asserts that the sojourn among the mountains is only given that, fortified in soul and body, we may return to the battle of life. To some of us this pious reflection must appear irredeemably vulgar. Those moments on the hills when the pulses of life seem quickened with new fire are given for the sake, and for the sake alone, of the moments themselves. To adapt them to didactic disquisition is to degrade the chief things of the ancient mountains. For the hills are no mere nursing-home to recuperate after the drudgery of the plains. Those that climb to advance science, to surpass records, to improve their digestion miss the real appeal. For we deserve or we do not deserve the mountains according as we regard them as an end in themselves or as a means to an end.