Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/197

Rh the end of our more active career that we realize to the full all that the mountains have done for us—(hear, hear)—and indeed, the consciousness may come quite suddenly upon us that we have perhaps, after we have climbed our very last mountain, gained a great possession of valued friendships and of happy memories—(hear, hear)—memories of which the recollection can fade away only with life itself. In the first volume of 'Peaks, Passes and Glaciers' John Ball wrote: 'The community of taste and feeling amongst those who in the life of the High Alps have shared the same enjoyments, the same labors and the same dangers constitutes a bond of sympathy stronger than many of those by which men are drawn into association.' Is not this true? Could any prediction have been more amply verified? Of a truth we were brought up not only in the law but amongst the prophets. You, the founders, revealed a new and wholesome pleasure which the early members so successfully deveolpeddeveloped [sic]. You discovered and made known the most unselfish and the grandest sport in this world. But in founding the Alpine Club you did a great deal more than that. You were the means of linking together, fascinated by one common pursuit, men of every taste, pursuit and occupation in life; and much more, and more important, men of every age—the young, those more mature in years, and those who have arrived at the period which the young are pleased to consider old, but which as a matter of fact is nothing of the kind. (Laughter and applause). This you, the founders, and you, the early members, have done for us, and for it we the rest shall ever be grateful to you.

"It is impossible, as I look round these tables, not to miss many faces once familiar and constantly seen at our Winter Dinners. It is hard indeed to believe that we must search in vain for Leslie Stephen or for the keen, alert face of Charles Mathews. Let that pass. I