If a thoughtful man goes even
in winter among the mountains, their vast repose sinks on his soul; his
love of them never slackens, and he returns again and again to his
haunts until time has stiffened his joints and dulled his eyes, and he
prepares to go down into the dust of death. But the wise man has a
salutary dislike of break-neck situations; he cannot let his sweet or
melancholy fancies free while he is hanging on for dear life to some
inhospitable crag, so he prefers a little moderate exercise of the
muscles, and a good deal of placid gazing on scenes that ennoble his
thoughts and make his imagination more lofty. One of the
mountain-climbing enthusiasts could not contrive to break his neck in
Europe, so, with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, he went to South
America and scaled Chimborazo. He could not quite break his neck even in
the Andes, but he no doubt turned many athletic friends yellow with
envy. Yet another went to the Caucasus, and found so many charming and
almost deadly perils there that he wants numbers of people to go out and
share his raptures.
The same barren competitive spirit breaks out in other directions. Men
will run across the North Sea in a five-ton boat, though there are
scores of big and comfortable steamers to carry them: they are cramped
in their tiny craft; they can get no exercise; their limbs are pained;
they undergo a few days of cruel privation--and all in order that they
may tell how they bore a drenching in a cockboat.
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