it would have been easier and much pleasanter to write of the alpine club man, and to describe his peculiarities and his glories, if that terrible accident had not happened on the matterhorn. it is ill jesting while the sad notes of some tragic song are still sounding in our ears. but the alpine club man has of late made himself so prominent among english tourists,—has become, with his ropes, his blankets, and his ladders, so well-acknowledged and much-considered an institution, that it would be an omission were he not to be included in our sketches. and, moreover, it may not be amiss to say yet a word or two as to the dangers of alpine club pursuits,—a word or[89] two to be added to all those words that have been said in these and other columns on the same subject.
it may well, i think, be made a question whether we are not becoming too chary of human life; whether we do not allow ourselves to be shocked beyond proper measure by the accidental death of a fellow mortal. there are two points of view from which we look at these sudden strokes of fate, which are so distinctly separated in our minds as to turn each calamity into two calamities; and the one calamity or the other will be regarded as the more terrible according to the religious tendencies of the suffering survivor. there is the religious point of view, which teaches us to consider it to be a terrible thing that a man should be called upon to give up his soul without an hour for special preparation; and there is the human point of view, which fills us with an ineffable regret that one well loved should be taken from those who loved him, apparently without a[90] cause,—with nothing, as we may say, to justify the loss of a head so dear. as regards the religious consideration, we know of course that we are constantly praying, with more or less of earnestness, that the evil of sudden death may not come upon us,—as we pray also that battles may not come. but yet, if occasion require it, if the honour of the country seemed to demand it, we do not hesitate about battles. we may say, at least, that we never hesitate on account of the death that must ensue, though we do hesitate with extreme caution on the score of the money that must be spent. and we consider,—if the cause have been good,—that the blood spilt on battle-fields has been well spilt, and that the lives gallantly rendered there have been well rendered. but the carnage there has all been the carnage of sudden death. it may be,—and yet it may hardly be,—that the soldier, knowing the chances of his profession, shall keep himself prepared for the death-dealing blow; but if the soldier[91] on the eve of battle can do so, then why not he who is about to climb among the mountain snows? but, in truth, the subject is one which does not admit of too curious an inquiry. as we pray to be removed from sudden death, so do we pray that we may always be prepared for it. we are going ever with our lives in our hands, knowing that death is common to all of us; and knowing also,—for all of us who ever think do know it,—that to him who dies death must be horrible or blessed, not in accordance with an hour or two of final preparation, but as may be the state of the dying man's parting soul as the final result of the life which he has led. it suits us in some of our religious moods to insist much on the special dangers of sudden death, but they are dangers which come home in reality to very few of us. what parson, though praying perhaps daily against sudden death, believes that his own boy is specially endangered,—specially endangered as regards his soul,—when he stands with his breast[92] right before the bullets of his country's enemy? in war, in commerce, not unfrequently in science, we disregard utterly the perils of sudden death; and if, as regards religion, these perils do not press on us in war and commerce, or in science, neither should they do so in reference to other pursuits. is there any man with a faith so peculiar as to believe that salvation will be refused to him who perishes among the mountains of europe because his employment is regarded as an amusement; but that it will be given to the african traveller because his work is to be accounted as a work of necessity? for myself, i do not think that there is a man who so believes.
and as to the human point of view,—that wearing regret which almost melts the heart into a stream of woe when the calamity comes home to oneself,—the argument is nearly the same. the poor mother whose dear gallant boy has fallen in battle, as she thinks of her lad's bright[93] eyes and curling locks, and straight young active limbs, and of all the glories of the young life which she herself gave with so many pangs,—as she remembers all this, she cannot reconcile herself to the need of war, nor unless she be a spartan, can she teach herself to think that that dear blood has been well shed for the honour of her country. and, should he have fallen from some snowy peak, her judgment of the event will be simply the same. it will be personal regret, not judgment. it is equally impossible that she should console herself in either event by calculating that the balance of advantage to the community of which she is a member is on that side to which courage and the spirit of adventure belong.
in our personal regrets we must all think of our individual cases; but in discussing such a question as belonging to england at large, we can only regard the balance of advantage. and if we find that that spirit of enterprise which cannot have its full swing, or attain its required momentum[94] without the fatality which will attend danger, leads to happy results,—that it makes our men active, courageous, ready in resource, prone to friendship, keen after gratifications which are in themselves good and noble; that it leads to pursuits which are in themselves lovely, and to modes of life which are worthy of admiration, then let us pay the necessary cost of such happy results without repining. that we should, all of us, have a tear of sorrow for those gallant fellows who perished on the matterhorn is very good;—
for lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, young lycidas, and hath not left his peer; who would not sing for lycidas?
but shall it be said among us that no boat is again to be put off from our shores because that one "fatal and perfidious bark" was "built in the eclipse?"
there is a fate infinitely worse than sudden death,—the fate of him who is ever fearing it. "mors omnibus est communis." we all know it,[95] and it is the excitement coming from that knowledge which makes life pleasant to us. when we hear of a man who is calm and collected under every danger, we know that we hear of a happy man. in hunting, in shooting, in yachting, in all adventures, in all travelling,—i had almost said in love-making itself,—the cream of the charm lies in the danger. but danger will not be danger long if none of the natural results of danger come; and the cream of such amusements would, under such safe circumstances, soon become poor and vapid as skim-milk. i would say that it is to be hoped that that accident on the matterhorn may not repress the adventurous spirit of a single english mountain-climber, did i not feel so sure that there will be no such repression as to leave no room for hoping.
and now for a word or two about the alpine club men, who have certainly succeeded in making their club an institution, clearly to be recognized on the face of the earth. whether rational or[96] irrational in his work, the alpine club man has been successful in his pursuit. a few years since,—how very few it seems to be!—to have gone up mont blanc was a feat which almost opened the gates of society to the man who had done it; but mont blanc is now hardly more than equal to the golden ball on the top of st. paul's cathedral. there will soon be no peak not explored, no summit in europe that is not accessible, no natural fortress that has not been taken. the alpine club will have used up switzerland, and the present hunting-grounds of these sportsmen will be expended. but money increases quickly, and distances decrease; wings that a few years since were hardly strong enough for a flight over the channel now carry their owners safely to the danube and the nile; jerusalem and the jordan are as common to us as were paris and the seine to our grandfathers; cigar ships travelling at railway paces will carry new alpine members to the mountains of asia and south america, and we[97] shall be longing eagerly in some autumn soon to come for news along the wires from chimborazo, or for tidings from the exploring party on dhawalagri.
but, in the meantime, the alpine club man still condescends to show himself in europe, though his condescension is not unmixed with a certain taint of pride. he does not carry himself quite as another man, and has his nose a little in the air, even when he is not climbing. he endeavours to abstain from showing that he despises the man who enjoys his mountains only from the valley; but the attempt is made with too visible an effort, and he is not quite able to bear himself, as though he, as a genuine alpine club man, were not, in some sort, a god upon the earth. to have had his feet where our feet have never rested, and can never rest, to have inhaled an air rarer than that which will ever inflate our lungs, to be one of a class permitted to face dangers which to us would be simply suicidal, does give him a[98] conscious divinity of which he is, in his modesty, not quite able to divest himself. he abstains from mountain talk as a scholar abstains from his grammar, or a chemist from his crucibles; but we feel that he is abstaining because of our ignorance; and when, at our instigation, he does speak of mountains, we feel that he talks of them as though they were naught, out of pity to our incompetence.
there are many pursuits among us which are of their own nature so engrossing that he who is wedded to them cannot divorce himself from their influences. who does not feel that a policeman is always a policeman, enjoying the detection of an imaginary thief in every acquaintance with whom he may exchange a word, and conscious of the possibility of some delightfully-deep criminality in the bosom of each of his dearest friends? the very nature of the man has become impregnated with the aptitudes of his art. how nearly impossible it is for the actor not to be an actor,[99] or for a cricketer who is great in cricket to forget his eleven, or for the billiard-player to cleanse his mind from hazards and canons. and with all such experts there grows up gradually an unconscious feeling that the art in which he is skilful is the one art worthy of a man's energy and of his intellect. to meet a foeman worthy of his steel he will willingly cross to the antipodes; and, as he goes, he pities his fellow-travellers who are cumbering themselves with the troubles of the journey for no purpose worthy of their labour. the genuine alpine club man,—he who aspires to any distinction among his colleagues,—is dipped as deeply in the waters of this mania as are the policeman, and the actor, and the cricketer. he climbs but for two months in each year of his life, but he lives his life in those two months. as the days of his thraldom to the ordinary duties of life come to an end,—the days in which he is merely a clergyman in his parish, or a lawyer among his clients, or a clerk at his desk,—his[100] heart grows light and his nostrils almost expand with the expectation of the longed-for mountain air. then, if you know nothing of mountain-climbing you are nothing to him,—simply nothing. if you are incapable of his exercise you are an unfortunate one, to whom god has not vouchsafed the best gift of physical life; or if you are neglectful, you are as the prodigal son who wasted all his substance. you eat and drink that you may enjoy it, sacrificing for your sensual pleasures muscles that might have made you respectable among climbers, while he,—he eats and drinks solely with reference to the endurance of his limbs and the capacity of his lungs. knowing all that he abandons and that you enjoy, how should he not become a pharisee in his vocation, thanking god that he is not as other men are?
but there is very much to be said in favour of this vocation. the hero of the alpine club, when at his work, is always a happy man. when he is defeated, his defeat is only an assurance of future[101] enterprise, and when he is victorious his triumph knows no alloy. there is nothing ignoble or sordid in his work. he requires no money reward to instigate him to excellence, as do those who deal in racehorses and run for prizes. his ascot cup is a fragment of rock from some pointed peak, his derby is the glory of having stood where man never stood before him. the occupation which he loves has in it nothing of meanness; it is never tainted with lucre; nor does his secret joy come from the sorrow of another. what father wishes his son to be great as a billiard-player? what father does not fear to see his son too great, even as a cricketer, or on the river? but the alpine club entails no such fears. the work is all pure,—pure in its early practice and pure in its later triumphs. its contact is with nature in her grandest attire, and its associations are with forms that are as suggestive of poetry to the intellect as they are full of beauty for the senses.
