ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND. 830 



sought refuge, and soo^j learned to gix'e practiral proof of his h)ve of 

 scenery by his choic'e of sites for his religious houses. But the litera- 

 ture of the eighteenth century was not written l)y monks or country- 

 men, or by men of world-wide curiosity and adventure like the 

 Italians of the Renaissance or our Elizabethans. It was the product 

 of a j)ractical connnon-sense epoch which looked on all waste places, 

 heaths like Hindhead, or hills like the Highlands, as l>lemishes in the 

 scheme of the universe, not having yet recognized their final pur])ose 

 as golf links or gymnasiums. Intellectual life was concentrated in cities 

 and courts; it despised the country. I>ooks were written by towns- 

 men, dwellers in towns which had not grown into vast cities, and 

 Avhose denizens therefore had not the longing to escape from tlieir 

 homes into purer air that we have to-day. They abused the Alps 

 frankly. But all they saw of them was the comparatively dull car- 

 riage i)asses, and these they saw at the worst time of year. Hasten- 

 ing to Rome for Easter, they traversed the Maurienne wdiile the 

 ground was still l)rown with frost and patched untidily with half- 

 melted snowdrifts. It is no wonder that (iray and Richardson, hav- 

 ing left spring in the meadows and orchards of Chambery, grumbled 

 at the wintry as])ect of Lanslel)ourg. 



That at the end of the eighteenth century a lite)'ary lady of western 

 Europe should have preferred a Paris gutter to the lake of Oeneva 

 is an amusing caricature of the spirit of the age that was passing 

 away, but it is no proof that the love of mountains is a new mania 

 and that all earlier ages and peoples looked on them with inditl'erence 

 or dislike. Wordsworth and Byron and Scott in this countiy, 

 Rousseau and (Toethe, De Saussure and his school abroad broke the 

 ice, but it was the ice of a winter frost, not of a ghu-ial ])eriod. 



Ci^nsider for a moment the literature of the two people who have 

 most influenced P^ur(>])ean thought — the Jews and the (xreeks. I need 

 hardly (juote a book that befoiv people (juarreled over education was 

 known to every child — the l)ible. I would rather refer you to a 

 delightful ])oem in rhyming (ilerman verse, written in the seventeenth 

 century, l)v a Swiss author, Rel)nian, ;n which he relates all the great 

 things that hap})ened on mountains in Jewish history; how S()lonu)n 

 enjoyed his Sonnnerfrische on Lebanon; how Moses disappeared 

 on a mountain top and Elias was looked for among the mountains; 

 how kings and prophets found their help among the hills; how 

 closely the hills of Palestine are connected with the story of tlu^ 

 Gospels. 



Consider, again, (Ireece, where I have just been wandei'ing. Did 

 the (irreeks j)ay no regard to their mountains? They seized eagerly 

 on any striking piece of hill scenery and connected it with a legend 

 or a shrine. They took llieir highest mountain, l)i'oa(l-l)ack'ed Olym- 

 pus, for the* home of the gods; their most cons])icuous mountain, 



