CHAPTER VII 



CONCERNING SOME SPRING AND SUMMER ALPINES 



It is probably safe to say that every manifestation 

 of Beauty can claim its victims. Certain it is that 

 Beauty, as represented by Alpine flowers, can 

 make such claim and rank it high. In spite of all 

 warning precedent, each year lengthens the roll of 

 victims to this one of Beauty's forms ; each year 

 the Alpine flora lures the unwary and immoderate 

 to mishap and disaster. Beauty is inoffensive — 

 ay, it is more than inoffensive, it is beneficent — 

 always providing, however, that we do not tiy to 

 gather too much of it to ourselves. In itself, it 

 can never so belie its name as to be disastrous. 

 * Beauty unadorned ' is flawless ; the mischief is in 

 ourselves — bUnd, eager, immoderate, indiscreet — 

 and all that we put upon our ideal. And when, 

 as in the case of the Edelweiss, Beauty is hnked 

 with Tradition, our immoderation is apt to be the 

 more pressing and inevitable, and Beauty receives 

 a value and notoriety it should never possess. 



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