60 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



touching upon realities which control and direct 

 the best of destinies. Compared with town-life, 

 one is in a new world ; and it is often astounding 

 to think that town-life is a necessity to which one 

 is obliged to add the important word " imperative." 

 And all this may be so even in wet weather. 

 Here, even when clouds hold everything in damp 

 and clinging embrace, we may 



" Grow rich in that which never taketh rust." 



And grow rich quite comfortably ; for have we not 

 our mackintoshes and goloshes I 



The Alps are not ours for climbing purpose 

 only. They are not for us only when winter 

 rules and gives us sports abounding, or when the 

 snows retire to the cradles of the glaciers, and the 

 days of late July and those of August and Sep- 

 tember grant us the conditions we most seek for 

 long excursions. They are ours also for an in- 

 termediate season : a season of the utmost value, 

 though, maybe, not for " sport." JNlr. Frederic 

 Harrison, speaking of " the eternal mountains, 

 vocal with all the most majestic and stirring 

 appeals to the human spirit," and of the treatment 

 of them by those who think only of " rushing from 

 pass to pass and from peak to peak in order to beat 



