Switzerland

the tourist by failure to live up to their reputation

r. He seems to shake off shackles from his mind and to enter into an enjoyment of life which is less earthly and nearer to the spiritual. His imagination is impressed with the thought that truly he is mounting towards the s

ilosophers have admitted to it with a more discreet but with a no less certain rapture. Many scientists have explained it with as ingenious explanations as were offered by those learned men who were set by a waggish French king to explain to him why it was that: given two dishes, each full to the brim of water, and two fish o

ory be correct, by one courtier-scientist who ingeniously pleaded that what His Majesty said on any matter must, by all loyal subjects, be accepted as a fact, and in truth di

ho hold it, if questioned in the Socratic manner to give proofs in the first place of the existence of the ennobling influence they believe in, could well plead a general human consent on the point-a universal belief. But

mination on the point by some mod

u, if you have time, explain to me why that is so? I am very anxious to know the true reaso

all? Every one knows that the mountain races are the most bra

Can you show me that it is a fact that mountain races are as you say? And afterwards, since you evidentl

ied to know that nearly all the poets and philosophers who have written about the mountains seem to be agreed on this point when they

sible that the poets have been mistaken. Probably you have heard o

not accept him as an authority on this point about which we are talking

re more beautiful than men, but less beautiful. And when they would argue against him the words of the great poets, who are all quite agreed that women are more beautiful than men, he retorts that all these poets have been men, and that they have been blind

ot absurd. There may be s

proof of the truth, especially if it can be shown that they

is any necessary application to the point about which w

wise men have exalted the character of mountain peoples. But now, can you te

Indeed in my recollection I can recall no very great poet or philosopher who

produce and rear poets and philosophers to any extent; that these praises of the better qualities of mountain peoples come from the great men whom

ing conditions than of a passing to better conditions. Human life primitively flowed fluid, here and there, in nomadic movements. When it began to congeal in cities and communities it departed from natural conditions, and Nature often exacts as a penalty some atrophy of the life impulse. But a change of environment and of air-any change-brings usually a stimulus. Nature thinks we are off to be nomad children playing at her skirts again, and gives back to us as a reward a hint of the old savage energy. I have felt a keen renewal of energy going up from the plains to the

presses no more than the orthodox view of th

Freedom on

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hook the st

the torr

r place she

'd in her p

ts of her m

ling on

e down thro'

with the h

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ness of

ORN FROM TH

sation and luxury, and hairy savages from the hills have learned to steal first their cattle and then the riches of their cities, and finally their ideas. Sometimes in these cases the people of the plain have been aroused to an old vigour by the robbers of the hills, have beaten them back after having imposed upon them some ideas of law and order, and have thus set the foundations for civilised mountain communities. Sometimes, again, the people of the hills have succeeded in establishing themselves on the plain, mingling with the civilised people whom they conquered, and in time learning their c

from the plain to the mountain; and found the path sometimes very difficult, and very treacherously defended. Where a mountain range has affected favourably the pro

started with a preconceived idea of an impossibly heroic people and to have been soured when they found unreasonable illusions shattered. "The Swiss are stubborn, devoid of all generous sentiment, not generous nor humane," said Ruskin. There spoke the disappointed sentimentalist. Obviously he approached the Swiss from the fallacious "Alpine character" point of view, and vainly expected them to live up to the super

the duty of sheltering alike fleeing patriots and fleeing criminals: and the criminals are usually the more numerous. In later stages mountains interfere greatly with the development of the machine

on in regard to the great plains of Europe has put them in the track of all the chief currents of civilisation. What they have managed to effect in spite of the handicap of their m