38 THE MOUNTAINS 



was like the ranchman who said, at a 

 Theodore Thomas symphony concert, 

 "This is a big place, but I don't just know 

 the name of it." But the mighty fugue 

 did not require mental comprehension on 

 my part. It penetrated and invigorated 

 the very center of manhood. I was quite 

 another man, and for hours afterward my 

 work, even the monotonous drudgery of 

 my work, was done easily and rejoicingly. 



The mountains are the mighty Bach- 

 fugues of nature. Far beyond their 

 scientific import, they reach men and re- 

 fresh men and comfort men and enlarge 

 men and ennoble men. And so I dare to 

 insist that there is such a thing as "the 

 mystic tonic of the mountains." 



This mystic tonic is effective ultimately 

 at several points: 



1. Sensibility 



Here imagination is reanimated. The 

 old deadness disappears, the old ennui 

 disappears, the old conventional pose dis- 



