894 



NATURE 



[December 22, 1923 



all decorative artists. How fully the lesson was learnt 

 has been dtmonstrated again and again, as when, on 

 dose examination, among a set of (Chinese vases used 

 for the adornment of a mantel-shelf one will l)c found 

 to Ix; a Delft-ware copy of a broken original. 



The most famous of the Dutch potters and pottery- 

 painters, such as De Keizer, Pijnucker and Frijtom of 

 the seventeenth century and Van ICcnhoorn and Fictoor, 

 who were at work early in the eighteenth century, as 

 well as the later painters like Hoppesteyn and Adrien 

 Pijnacker, are fully dealt with and the characteristic 

 details of handling or treatment by which their work 

 may be distinguished are clearly explained. Valuable 

 and interesting as the work is, it is more than a little 

 disconcerting to find the author indulging in such an 

 unwarrantable statement as is contained in the last 

 paragraph, where she states that when the Stafford- 

 shire earthenware of Wedgwood and his compeers dis- 

 placed the tin-enamelled wares by their fine and 

 eminently serviceable qualities, " The wares which had 

 been the pride of Holland, possessing in their soft, 

 pleasant enamel and cheerful, harmonious colouring a 

 charm unequalled even by Chinese porcelain, went 

 under before the output of an industry to which Dutch 

 craftsmen had given its start." One is inclined to rub 

 one's eyes and wonder if the words flow from some 

 ultra-patriotic writer who, not content with the assured 

 position always accorded to the wares of her native 

 country, must needs exalt them above their proper 

 place by challenging the finest pottery known among 

 men. William Burton. 



A Lover of Mountains. 



Below the Snow Line. By Douglas W. Freshfield. 

 Pp. viii + 270. (London : Constable and Co., Ltd., 

 1923.) 185. net 



MR. FRESHFIELD has been, as he tells us, " as 

 much a traveller as a climber," and he offers 

 these " selections from old records of travel " in the 

 hope that they may " convey to a few kindred spirits 

 suggestions of alternative playgrounds near and far 

 off, accessible at times when the High Alps are practi- 

 cally closed." But neither the title of the book nor 

 the innuendo of these sentences must be taken literally. 

 They do no justice to the scope of Mr. Freshfield 's 

 journeys, to the amount of true exploration involved, or 

 the depth of the author's knowledge of mountains and 

 mountain ranges, or his great love for mountain travel. 

 After all, they " half reveal and half conceal the soul 

 within," Perhaps the title was a mere chance re- 

 percussion from that of Mr. Clinton Dent's " Above the 

 Snow Line." It serves at least to prove that to the 

 true mountaineer all things fall to be considered in 

 relation to the snow line. The lower slopes have no 

 NO. 2825, VOL. 112] 



absolute value, save as they lead to the hi^aa, or. i; 

 they have the misfortune to be so situated ge(^raphi< 

 ally as to have no higher slopes, they are to be con 

 sidered as opening a prospect of the great hills, or, i: 

 even this be denied, as illustrating them in rcminiscen( « 

 There is indeed more in it than that. Mr. Freshficlfi 

 is in grain a traveller ; and, though we can s< 

 conceive of him as travelling without a mouni i 

 a goal or as a Imckground, his interest in mountain 

 does not consist solely in getting up and down them. 

 He has, it is true, been engaged in doing so for a 

 period that includes almost the whole of the historj- <>i 

 modem mountaineering. Mr. Alfred Wills ascended 

 the Wetterhom in 1854. Mr. Freshfield published 

 "Thonon to Trent" in 1865. A great many thin^- 

 have happened since then. Trent has changed both its 

 nationality and its name, and a whole system of Alpine 

 theory and technique has been evolved. But during 

 all that time Mr. Freshfield has continued to find 

 pleasure on one side of the snow line or another, and 

 to delight those who take the same pleasure by telling 

 them, on occasions all too rare, what he found there 

 and why he liked it. How many summits must his 

 foot have trodden ? How many mountain valleys must 

 he have known ? 



" Conturbabimus ilia, ne sciamus, 

 Aut ne quis malus invidere jXKsit, 

 Cum tantum sciat esse. ..." 



Mr, Freshfield brings to his task of communicating 

 his pleasure to others qualities more valuable than 

 mere experience. He has an ironic wit, wide reading, 

 and a retentive memor\', and he has always written 

 as a scholar and a man of taste. The hardships and 

 discomforts of mountaineering are easier to bear when 

 encountered with a certain rough jocularity. But that 

 which cheers on the hillside is often intensely depressing 

 in the study, and the stock Alpine joke, preserved like 

 a fly in amber in the pages of the Alpine periodicals, 

 has a shrunken and almost repulsive appearance. 

 Mr. Freshfield does not disdain to jest. But he is too 

 witty to be facetious. 



Mr. Freshfield will always be associated, in particular, 

 with those Italian Alps which he made his own in 

 the years before 1875 and to which he allured his 

 countrymen by the volume published in that year. 

 That charming book must have sent so many people 

 to the district of which it treats that it is difficult to 

 think of Mr. Freshfield without Val Maggia, or of Val 

 Maggia without Mr. Freshfield. This book cannot 

 hope to make so wide an appeal. It does not happen 

 to every lover of the mountains to have the time to 

 visit Japan or the Mountains of the Moon or the Kabyle 

 Highlands, Not all of us, even if we had time, 

 have the capacity for enduring heat which enables 



