Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/15

 AN APPRECIATION.

As one who, during some years, kept the closest intellectual company with A. F. Mummery, I much value the opportunity afforded by the re-publication of this book to place on record certain memories of his personality which relate to other aspects than mountaineering. To me he was not a climber, but simply a fearless and independent thinker upon economic and other problems of modern life. Not until I came to know him intimately did the natural harmony of his varied gifts and prowess become fully manifest. He was first made known to me by common friends as a hard-headed business man who had, in the course of his experience, developed certain heretical notions about spending and saving, which he sought to get discussed. For a year or two we threshed the matter out, chiefly by correspondence, with rare occasional meetings, until, by persistent force and ingenuity of argument, he overbore all my preliminary objections. We then went together into the close work of developing what seemed to us a new and necessary statement of the