before them, is another mystery. We cannot explain what rapport there
is between our human souls and these inequalities in the surface of
the earth which we call Alps. Tennyson speaks of

Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height,

and its vagueness eludes definition. The interest which physical
science has created for natural objects has something to do with it.
Curiosity and the charm of novelty increase this interest. No towns,
no cultivated tracts of Europe however beautiful, form such a contrast
to our London life as Switzerland. Then there is the health and joy
that comes from exercise in open air; the senses freshened by good
sleep; the blood quickened by a lighter and rarer atmosphere. Our
modes of life, the breaking down of class privileges, the extension of
education, which contribute to make the individual greater and society
less, render the solitude of mountains refreshing. Facilities of
travelling and improved accommodation leave us free to enjoy the
natural beauty which we seek. Our minds, too, are prepared to
sympathise with the inanimate world; we have learned to look on the
universe as a whole, and ourselves as a part of it, related by close
ties of friendship to all its other members Shelley's, Wordsworth's,
Goethe's poetry has taught us this; we are all more or less
Pantheists, worshippers of 'God in Nature,' convinced of the
omnipresence of the informing mind.

Thus, when we admire the Alps, we are after all but children of
the century. We follow its inspiration blindly; and while we think
ourselves spontaneous in our ecstasy, perform the part for which we
have been trained from childhood by the atmosphere in which we live.