described the first ascent, and the impression it made upon him, in a
paper which has become classical for succeeding adventurers. Behind you
the snow-slope sinks with perilous steepness towards the wilderness of
glacier and rock through which the ascent has lain. But in front the ice
sinks with even greater steepness for a few feet or yards. Then it
curves over and disappears, and the next thing that the eye catches is
the meadowland of Grindelwald, some 9,000 feet below. I have looked down
many precipices, where the eye can trace the course of every pebble that
bounds down the awful slopes, and where I have shuddered as some
dislodged fragment of rock showed the course which, in case of accident,
fragments of my own body would follow. A precipice is always, for
obvious reasons, far more terrible from above than from below. The
creeping, tingling sensation which passes through one's limbs--even when
one knows oneself to be in perfect safety--testifies to the thrilling
influence of the sight. But I have never so realised the terrors of a
terrific cliff as when I could not see it. The awful gulf which
intervened between me and the green meadows struck the imagination by
its invisibility. It was like the view which may be seen from the ridge
of a cathedral roof, where the eaves have for their immediate
background the pavement of the streets below; only this cathedral was
9,000 feet high. Now, any one standing at the foot of the Wetterhorn may
admire their stupendous massiveness and steepness; but, to feel their
influence enter in the very marrow of one's bones, it is necessary to
stand at the summit, and to fancy the one little slide down the short
ice-slope, to be followed apparently by a bound into clear air and a
fall down to the houses, from heights where only the eagle ventures to
soar.

This is one of the Alpine beauties, which, of course, is: beyond the
power of art to imitate, and which people are therefore apt to ignore.