220 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



is intensified by the whistle of a curlew, high above 

 against the driving clouds, or completed by the desolate 

 resentful wail of the peewit. 



But more than all, perhaps, if any one will have 

 patience with these cheap Cook's Tours of reminiscence, 

 count in my love the bogs and streams of the highest 

 Alps. Not above all, perhaps, for the very limitations of 

 the English uplands give them a charm greyer and more 

 subtle in some ways than the riotous, unrestrained fer- 

 tility of the higher Alps. But the sombre magnificence of 

 Ingleborough is sometimes harsh and cold and uncon- 

 ducive to one's moods ; the glory of the Alps is always 

 obvious and irresistible, at least to those whose artificial 

 tastes are not repelled by the obvious. Alas that such 

 things should be, but there are actually people who ' do 

 not like the Alps,' who think them banal and chromo- 

 lithographic ! O pale cold hearts, corrupted with 

 terror of admiring the obvious, whose jaded pulse will 

 not let itself be stirred by anything that they cannot 

 think bizarre, recondite, beyond the comprehension of the 

 profane crowd ! Thus, in their loves and hates, they are 

 for ever flattering their own vanity, and proving to 

 themselves that they are not as other men — a needless 

 proof, too, for all I know who have hammered out this 

 horrid heresy about the mountains, are people of such 

 charm that they need no other claim to a pinnacle high 

 above their tedious fellow-mortals. Yet, in this one vital 

 spot they are weak, lacking courage to adore the easy. 

 They are of the same blood with those who pretend that 

 the rose and the diamond are not worshipful, because 

 they are common. But I will not dive into an analysis 

 of that mysterious and even incomprehensible state of 

 soul which confuses beauty with rarity ; I might dissect 

 for ever without result. Instead, I will turn to those 

 who have sound, happy minds, and now invite them to 



