LIFE IN AN ISLAND. 79 



is for them almost exclusively a " geographical ex- 

 pression," a mass of mountains, passes, lakes,, and 

 glaciers, never made into recognisable human soil by 

 any relationships between the inhabitants and the 

 visitors beyond those of steady extortion on one side 

 and violent objurgation on the other. "Were it not 

 that one is deterred from lively ridicule by a certain 

 sense that one is liable in one's own person to com- 

 ment of the same amusing description, there is scarcely 

 any exhibition of modern life more absurd than the 

 aspect of an English party in. the act of doing a 

 famous point of view. Any attempt at enthusiasm 

 under such awful circumstances is enough to com- 

 promise the character of the unhappy individual who 

 commits it for half his life and indeed the ortho- 

 dox rule of behaviour on such occasions seems to 

 demand that each of the company should confiden- 

 tially express to some other his sense of the utter 

 bore to which he is being subjected, and his profound 

 conviction that fine scenery is a delusion. These 

 were thy sentiments, dear countryman, on the heights 

 of the Gemmi, on the sweetest August morning 

 thou whose accent breathed of Edinburgh, and who 

 carriedst "W.S." stamped all over thy substantial 

 frame and jovial features. But the ineffable sickness 

 which possessed thee for anything in the shape of a 

 mountain by no means impaired thy relish for the 

 distant glacier, which no one else of discreet years 

 had ambition enough to scale ; and the austere path- 



