Year: 1864

MOUNTAINEERING.


A mere autumn walk along a wooded
hillside nourishes brain, spirit and body
at once, and opens to us from all sources
together new wellspriuss of life. Half
the best thoughts of cur modern poets,
OF our artists, our musicians, our teach
ers, have been lit up by this-th sim.
plest, truest source of inspiration. Not,
Of course, that mere tension of muscle or
sudorilicctica of the skin has in it such
virtue. Mere exercise at crank work
would hardly avail. The mind must be
uobent while the sinews are being tight
ened. a new sphere must be sought,
new atmosphere must be breathed. Aud
OF all these grounds the Alps offer US the
most new aud strange, the most exhila-
rating, the most instructive, the most
ennobling. 1t is not badly rest alone
which is needed by the jaded son of let
ters, law or science. lie requires most
his spirit to be eshed-bathed in new
life-not simply relaxed lie need to
lay aside memory, forethought, contriv.
ance and method-to shake his shoulders
free from the yoke of habit, to step down
from the tread mill of convention on to
the fresh sod of his mother earth. The
dull mechanic round of life CRATES so
harshly on the frae spirit that to live it
must escape sometimes from its cage, and
soar up exulting to the gates Of heaven.
We live for the most part in very iron
mask of forms Oar daily ways are as
bottom so joyless, so trite, so compulsory,
that we must be free and simple some
times or We break Our present world
is world of remarkable civilization, ard
of very superior virtue but i, is not very
natural and not very happy. We need
yet SOME snatches of the life of youth
to be for season only, simply happy and
simply healthy. We need to draw some.
times great drafts Of simplicity and beau.
ty. We need sometimes that poetry
should be, not droued into our ears, but
flashed into our senses. A man, with
all his knowledge and his pride, needs
sometimes to know nothing and feel moth
ing but that lie is a marvellous atom in
marvellous wori3


But there are yet various reasons
which make keen physical cxer,ions not
merely necessary for our muscular aud
animal system, but essential also to our
moral nature. Oar high material civil
izasion is always tending towaris the
paint where it might annihilate those
mundane conditions which make the hu
man powers what they are. Our intel,
lects-nay, our very yirtues would very
soon rot or run to seed, were the necess;-
ty for etfort-and all effort is untimc,y
concentrated in muscular c.Tort-were all
effort banished from the world. The
human race will be drawing towards
bad end when nc cue ever feels too hot
or too weary, and never see a fellow being
10 want Of strong arm and resolute self
sacrifice. Nothing can be more false
than the silly old quibble that an increase
OF cultivation takes the manhood and
heart out of the advancing generations.
But there would soon be truth ia this
venerable lie, if it were to turn ou. that
Increased cultivation made the sterncr
qualities OF manhood, supertluous and
obsolete so long as this plano, remains
what 1t is, there will always come times
10 mans life when he needs for himself
aud for others, that reasonable disregard
of pain Of life, that iasensibilty 10 phys,
ical privatiou, that lightuin. readiness of
hand and eye, that dogged temper of en-.
durance which men have called manli-
ness ever since the days Of tho Trojan
war Now these things cannot be learn.
ed without some practice, and cannot
always be practiced at given moment or
place. They need much habitua use, at
times the most unexpected, and in ways
the most pcrplexing. To seek after these
occasions, to hazard something for them
within the jud dgmcnt of consderate
mind, is very desirable and indeed cs-
scntial puspose in these times, and very
worthy Of the rational man. Hence it is
that our time honored field sports and
manly games, even if risking something
occasionally to life and limb (within
the limits of cool sense), are not excusa-
bic only, but actively meritorous; not
pleasant merely, but positively virtuous;
for By them the sap Of man is kept UP
fresh and pure, and the FIBER of our neryes
as tough as ever was that of our fore.
fathers Westminster Rertew.