peaks, or vast unbroken amplitude, sinks into The 



the sudden deep clearness of the enveloping Mountain 

 i Charm, 



sky. 



Even in June, however, the mountain 

 charm is not to be sought, as in a last sanctuary, 

 on the summits of the hills. I believe that to 

 be a delusion, a confusion, which asserts the 

 supreme beauty of the views from mountain 

 summits. I have climbed many hills and not 

 a few mountains, and, except in one or two 

 instances (as Hecla in the Hebrides), never 

 without recognition that, in beauty, one does 

 not gain, but loses. There are no heights in 

 Scotland more often climbed by the holiday 

 mountaineer than Ben Nevis in Argyll and 

 Goat Fell in the Isle of Arran. Neither, in 

 beauty or grandeur of view, repays the ascent. 

 Goat Fell is a hundred times lovelier seen 

 from the shores or glens of its own lower 

 slopes, or from a spur of the Eastern Caisteall 

 Abhaill : the boatmen on the waters of Lome, 

 the shepherd on the hills of Morven, the way- 

 farer in the wilds of Appin, they know the 

 beauty of 'the Sacred Hill' as none knows 

 it who thinks he has surprised the secret on 

 the vast brows overhanging the inchoate 

 wilderness. At its best, we look through a 

 phantasmal appearance upon a phantasmal 

 world, and any artist will tell us that the 



23 



