Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/273

228 the grand truth that "language is given us that we may conceal our thoughts," we advanced fictitious arguments based on the text-books, and backed them up with various sentences from the advice of wise and august personages—Presidents of the Alpine Club and the like—to the effect that climbers should always turn back in bad weather. Hastings, gazing on the two yards of slope visible in front, with the same sort of joy that inspired Cromwell's Ironsides when a troop of cavaliers came in sight, was difficult to convince, and appealed to the actual examples of the heroes and demi-gods we had quoted. Expedition was piled on expedition, demonstrating that the authors of this excellent advice, those in whose brains it was best understood and appreciated, had invariably and consistently disregarded its teaching; showing, as he alleged, that in this, as in other departments of human life, "the rule is better honoured in the breach than the observance."

The argument here touched on the larger question, whether it is better to follow the advice or the example of great men, and recognising with pleasure that much time would necessarily be consumed in grappling with it, I lit a fresh cigarette. Collie, accentuating his points with a hand extended and made more emphatic by his pipe, was just briefly reviewing the outlines of the problem when a smart shower of hail, snow, and rain terminated the discussion in our favour. With our coat