PREFACE. FOR the drawing of the Weisshorn, from which the frontispiece is taken, I am indebted to the obliging kindness of Mr. Wm. Mathews, Jun., of the Alpine Club. As the reader looks at the engraving, the ridge along which we ascended is to his right hand. For the sketch of the Matterhorn, I have to thank my friend Mr. E. W. Cooke. It represents this 'paragon of mountains as to form,' in its sharpest aspect. The mottoes taken from Mr. Tennyson will be recognised by everybody :- the others are from the poems of Mr. Emerson. The writing of this little book has been a pleasure to me; constituting, as it often did, a needed relaxation from severer duties. Both as regards the past and the future, as objects of memory and of hope, -the Alps are of interest to me. Among them I annually renew my lease of life, and restore the balance between mind and body which the purely intellectual discipline of London is calculated to destroy. I can wish my reader no better possession than a full measure of that health and strength which his summer exercises confer upon the mountaineer. J. T. ROYAL INSTITUTION: March 1862. |