Doubtless there may exist some people who, even if they had been smitten by the glory of the mountains in the age of their own most abounding youthful powers of body, would not have been attracted to climb them; yet such folks must be rare. Those who first see mountains in the years of their solid maturity naturally escape the attraction. But most young and healthy individuals as naturally desire to climb as they do to swim or to wander. The instinct of man is to believe that joy is somewhere else than where he stands. "Dort wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück." It is not true, but life is not long enough to teach us that it is not--and fortunately, else were half our efforts quenched in the impulse.
To see round, over, and beyond--that is the natural desire of all. We want to go everywhere, to behold everything. Who would not rush to visit the other side of the moon, were such journey possible? If Messrs. Cook were to advertise a trip to Mars, who would not be of the party? "To see round, over, and beyond"--that is a common human instinct, which accounts for the passion of historical and scientific investigation, for the eagerness of politicians, for the enthusiasm of explorers and excavators, for the inquisitiveness of psychical societies, for the prosperity of fortune-tellers, and for the energy of mountaineers. What! There is a height looking down on me and I cannot attain it? There is a mountain wall around me and I cannot look over it? Perish the thought! There is an historical limit behind which I know nothing about the human race? Give me a spade, that I may dig out some yet earlier ancestor and discover something about him. There is an unmapped region at the south pole? What is my Government made of that it does not send forth an expedition to describe it?
[Illustration: 4. THE PIER AT SCHERZLIGEN, LAKE OF THUN--EVENING. The Niesen on the right.]
In face of the unknown all men are of one mind. They cannot but endeavour to replace ignorance by knowledge. What is true of the mass is true to some extent of each individual. There exists in the unit the same tendency at all events as in the multitude. Each man wants to see what he has not seen, to stand where he has not stood, to learn more than he knows. In the presence of mountains this desire urges him upward. He does not start as a mountaineer intending to climb, and climb. He starts for a single expedition, just to see what high peaks and glaciers are like. The snowy regions beheld from a distance puzzle him. Evidently they are not like the places he is familiar with. He will for once go and take a nearer look. He will climb somewhither and get a sight all round. Little does he suspect what the outcome of his venture may be. A week ago he was perhaps laughing at the tattered-faced climbers he met, as mad fools, going up to mountain-tops just to come down again and say they had been there. Of such folly he at any rate will never be guilty. Climbing has no fascinations for him; he is merely going to have a look at the white world, so that he may know what it is that he hears people talking about--their corridors and their couloirs, crevasses, snow-bridges, séracs, and bergschrunds.