MOUNTAINS AND IILLS 
219 
In considering mountains for their pictu- 
resque appearances, the ascent of them claims 
some attention, for, oddly enough, mankind in 
general will have it that the only way to see a 
mountain or a valley is from the mountain’s 
top. One marvels at the universal predilection 
for the “ view,” and at times the wonder grows 
if the energy spent in scrambling up to high 
places is not worthy of a better cause. It is all 
of a piece with hanging over Niagara and being 
agitated by the “‘ bigness” of things, or looking 
through the reverse end of the opera-glass and 
wondering over the smallness of things. The 
man in Paris who climbs the stairs of that 
wearisome Column of July, to see the city lying 
below him like a checker-board, is cousin-ger- 
man to the man who climbs Mt. Blanc to see the 
“view,” and, incidentally, the smallness of his 
Chamonix hotel lying below him in the valley. 
Like other people, I have done my share of 
mountain-climbing, but I never felt repaid for 
the exertion, and I may add that I never had 
much sympathy with the ‘‘ view” as seen from 
mountain-tops. It is usually said to be “grand,” 
but to me it has been so only in a scenic, pan- 
oramic way. Even from such comparatively 
low places as the Catskill Mountains, or the 
The ascent. 
Concerning 
the ‘* view.” 
The pano- 
rama, 
