ow, and cannot
refuse to learn, even at the cost of toil and trouble, all the ways of
the human mind. And experience at second-hand can never be relied on.
The average man is afraid of saying he was afraid. And the average
climber is one who has long passed the interesting stage when he first
faced the unknown. I was obviously a novice, and a green one, when I
tried the Matterhorn. That I was such a novice is the only thing which
makes me think my experience at all interesting from the psychological
point of view. And to my mind that point of view is also the literary
one.

On looking back I certainly believe I was very much afraid of the
mountains in general and of the Matterhorn in particular. It is
difficult, however, to say where fear begins and mere natural
nervousness leaves off. Fear, after all, is often the note of warning
sounded by a man's organism in the face of the unknown. It is hardly
strange it should be felt upon the mountains. But if I was afraid of the
mountains (and I thought that I was) I was certainly curious. During my
first week at Zermatt I had done a good second-class peak, but had been
told that the difference between the first and second class was
prodigious. This naturally excited curiosity. And I began to feel that
my curiosity could only be satisfied by climbing the Matterhorn. For one
thing that mountain has a great name; for another it looks inaccessible.
And it had only been done once that year. If I did it I should be the
first Englishman on the summit for the season. And the guides were
doubtful whether it would "go."

But, after all, was it not said by folks who climbed to the Schwartzsee
that the mountain was really easy? Were not the slabs above the Shoulder
roped? Did not processions go up it in the middle of the season? And yet
it was now only the first of July and there was a good deal of new snow
on the mountain. And why were the guides just a little doubtful? Perhaps
they were doubtful of me; and yet Joseph Pollinger had taken me up three
smaller peaks. I decided that I had hired him to do the thinking. But I
could not make him do it all.

The day I had spent upon the Wellenkuppe had been a time of imagination,
and I had seen the beauty of things. But from the Matterhorn I can
eliminate the element of beauty. I saw very little beauty in it or from
it. I had other things to do than to think of the sublime. But I could
think of the ridiculous, and at one o'clock in the morning