52 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION 



which, from the earliest days of human experience, have 

 appealed most forcibly to the imagination, have sur- 

 vived longest in the more rugged and remote regions, 

 partly, no doubt, because these regions have lain furthest 

 away from the main onward stream of human progress, 

 but partly also because it is there that the most im- 

 pressive topographical features exist. The natural 

 influence of mountain-scenery upon the mind is pro- 

 bably of an awe-inspiring, depressing kind. We all 

 remember the eloquent language in which Mr. Ruskin 

 depicts what he calls the ' mountain gloom.' Man 

 feels his littleness face to face with the mighty ele- 

 mental forces that have found there their dwelling- 

 place. Even so near our own time as the later decades 

 of the eighteenth century men of culture could hardly 

 find language strong enough to paint the horrors of 

 that repulsive mountain-world into which they ventured 

 with some misgivings, and from which they escaped 

 with undisguised satisfaction. After we have made 

 every allowance for the physical discomforts inseparable 

 from such journeys at that time, when neither prac- 

 ticable roads nor decent inns had been built, it is clear 

 that mountain-scenery not only had no charm for 

 intelligent and observant men, but filled them with 

 actual disgust. Not until the nineteenth century did 

 these landscapes come into vogue with ordinary sight- 

 seers. Only within the last two or three generations 

 have mountains begun to attract a vastly larger annual 

 band of appreciative pilgrims than ever crowded along 

 what used to be called the ' grand tour.' For this 

 happy change we are largely indebted to the Alpine 

 ascents and admirable descriptions of the illustrious De 



