not one of those who do big ascents. And though we were on an easy task,
the Cima di Jazzi is very easy indeed, so easy that most real climbers
have never climbed its simple mound of easily rising snow.

Then we went on and soon after roped, as there might be some crevasses
not well bridged, and presently I perceived that we had indeed a long
snow-grind before us, and I got very gloomy at the prospect and swore
and grumbled to myself. For there is no pleasure to me in being on the
mountains unless there is some element of risk, apparent or real matters
not. For, after all, with good guides and good weather there is little
real danger. The main thing is to get a sensation out of it; the
feeling of absorption in the moment which prevents one thinking of
anything but the next step. A snow-grind is like a book which has to be
read and which has no interest. I can imagine many reviewers must have
their literary snow-grinds. And so we crawled along the surface of the
snow with never a big crevasse to enliven one, and the sun rose up and
peered across the vast curves of white and almost blinded us. On our
left was the great chain of the Mischabel, of which I had once seen the
real bones and anatomy from the Matterhorn, and then came the
Rimpfischorn and Strahlhorn. I once asked a guide what had given its
name to the Rimpfischorn, and he answered that it was supposed to be
like a "rimf." When I asked what that was he said it was something which
was like the Rimpfischorn. And to our right were the peaks of Monte
Rosa, Nordend and Dufourspitze, black rock out of white snow, and the
ridge of the Lyskamm, and the twin white snow peaks, Castor and Pollux.
And some might say the view was very beautiful, and no doubt it was
beautiful, though not so to me. For I hate the long snow-fields, the
vast plains of _neve_ with their glare and their infinite infernal
monotony. Sometimes when I took off my snow-goggles the shining white
world seemed a glaring and bleached moon-land, a land wholly unfit for
human beings, as indeed it is. And though things seem near they are very
far off. An hour's walk hardly moves one in the landscape. A man is
little more than a lost moth; such a moth as we found dead and frozen as
we crawled over the great snow towards the Strahlhorn. We sat down to
rest, and I fought with my friend O---- about the beauty of the
mountains, and horrified him by denying that there is any real
loveliness above the snow-line. He