Page:To the Summit of Cardigan (1922).djvu/11

 In a general way, the Nomad accepts Ruskin's maxim that "mountains are to be looked at, not from." Acceptance of that saying indicates that the mind obeys the æsthetic impulse first of all. In looking at mountains—most mountains—one sees beauty of an inspiring, an emotional sort. In looking from the summit of a mountain one sometimes indeed sees great beauty, but the impression of that beauty is overlaid by the sense of vastness, a feeling of awe, a sort of shudder at so much grandeur. The emotion excited by the scene is not one of æsthetic delight, but one of deep wonder. One goes to the mountain top for a revelation, not for simple delight, surely not for rest—and this the Nomad ventures to say in despite of Goethe, who said "Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruhe." Perhaps that was all right for Goethe; his vast mind, accustomed to be moved, found at the mountain top that sort of emotion which to him was rest. It is not so in the Nomad's case. In his lesser soul the summit rather inspires unrest.

For that reason, perhaps, the Nomad, when he climbs the mountains, prefers the lesser heights. In their case, he is nearer to the gentle valley. Even though from the top of Mount Washington he has seen the ocean, and beheld seas upon seas of other mountains and a world full of forests, he is happier at the summit of Lafayette, whence he can view in the distance his native valley and the little lakes and the climbing pastures of Vermont. And then, again, he likes isolated heights, which somehow individualize and æstheticize the prospect. It was this liking which led him the other day to climb a mountain with which his previous acquaintance had been but casual. It was Cardigan, in western New Hampshire—a real and very beautiful mountain, seemingly of volcanic origin, which stands alone in the midst of a lovely lake country, and whose granite summit rises clean and dome-like above the rich timber that envelops its sides. And after the ascent had been made, and the wanderer's feet found themselves once more back in the valley, the Nomad was compelled to admit that the emotional experience abundantly justified the climb. For once, he would not have been content to rest with looking at the mountain, not from it.