Mountains! I scarcely feel myself competent to fulfil the promise of this title, for I was never upon one in my life! Never had I the advantage of contemplating the mighty eminences of America; I have not even had the experience of standing beneath and toiling up to the summit of the white-haired Alps; nay, even the grand hills of Scotland, or the classic watchers beside the English lakes, have never been visited by me. Still imagination will often supplement the deficiencies of experience, and it is a good thing, I am convinced, for us all, so far as we can, to leave sometimes the plain of our daily routine of life, and to muse upon at least relatively higher ground.

I will begin by recalling my nearest approach to any experience of mountain ascent.

202 I was staying in Herefordshire with my brother, in his parish among the hills and woods. When a friend is with us, we seem to think it a necessity, both for his sake and our own, to rove somewhat, and to explore some of the more distant country. Accordingly we fell to planning expeditions, and after divers suggestions, contemplations, and rejections, fixed upon a small village beside a lovely stream renowned for its trout and grayling, and near a hill famous in those parts, and named Croft Ambrey. We were to sleep two nights at a small inn near the stream, and from that stream we were to extract our breakfast. There is always a great charm about these expeditions—a novelty, an independence, a breaking through the trammels of life’s daily routine, in their enterprising pic-nic character. And so my brother, his wife and I, started on the appointed morning, in high glee. We were, I remember, however, employed half the day in the vain endeavour to catch the white pony; and were at one time almost in despair of our getting off at all. The little rogue had been put up to some sly tricks by a horse with whom he had been observed to have been conferring over the fence for some days previously, and I remember the almost comic provocation with which he let us sidle up to him, with blandishments and barley, until just within range for the halter, and then, at the very moment of attainment, was off, and anon standing demure and meek at the other end of the field. Nor did we fare better if we altered our tactics, and, like wolves over the northern snows, tried to hem in our prey in a deadly half-circle. He ever contrived to give us the slip, and it was203 not until we were wearied out, and on the point of giving up our expedition for that day, that he surrendered at discretion.

We started, nevertheless, wound up again as to our spirits for the excursion, and thoroughly enjoying a twenty-miles drive through lovely scenery. It was so late, however, when we arrived near Croft Ambrey, that we had but time that afternoon for a walk towards it, and up a lesser hill, and so back to our quiet little inn, close to the Lugg. How one enjoys the meals on these occasions! That broiled ham and eggs, and home-brewed beer, in the little sanded room; what venison and champagne refection could for a moment compare with them? It is the charm of novelty, I suppose, in scene and room and everything. Of course, it is easy to understand the zest that attends a dish of trout and grayling of your own catching.

But to return to Croft Ambrey. Next day we were prevented by other engagements from fulfilling that with our hill. And, since we were to start quite early on the morrow, the chance of my ascending it seemed over when I retired to my homely but clean little bedroom at night. However, I had not quite given the thing up. It was in my mind, could I but contrive to wake at five in the morning, to sally forth, while great part of the world was asleep, and explore the peaks, passes, and glaciers of that noble hill. I am not good at waking, unless called. But—and this seems an illustration of how the mind controls the body—it is certain that if you go to sleep with a strong desire or sense of duty concerning the waking at a certain hour, you not unfrequently, after a careful fumbling204 under the pillow, find your watch demonstrating pretty nearly the time that your mind had appointed. This may be a mere coincidence, but it is one whose recurrence I have often marked. At any rate, I know that next morning I awoke, with a sudden instinct consulted my privy counsellor, and was by it informed that five o’clock was yet a few minutes distant. And so I arose, and drew the blind, and looked out upon the still world, in the sharp cool morning air. The light seemed clear and cold, and there was an incessant twitter and loud chirping dialogue of many awakened birds. A thin mist was withdrawing from the fields, and yet lay upon the course of the river. I hastened my dressing, and quietly slid down stairs. How well most of us know the weird strangeness of the house at the early morning hour, when all in it are still asleep, but day is peering in through closed shutters, and above locked doors! The darkling light; the breathing hush; the dog curled on the mat, rising uneasily, and surveying matters suspiciously, but, reassured, settling himself down again with a preliminary shake, when
“His sagacious eye an inmate owns”;

the sullen disturbing sound at the street door, of bolts and locks, and bars, that would have seemed noiseless enough by day. And then the clear sharp feeling of the air, when you step into the road; the silent unpeopled worship of nature at its matins’ hour; the shadows, long as those of evening, and more grey and pearly, along the white empty road. And, enhancing the stillness, perhaps one lonely traveller met, seeming the world’s only inhabitant;205 and, as you walk farther on into the day, presently
“The carter, and his arch-necked, sturdy team, Following their shadows on the early road.”

Thus, then, I sallied forth, and to my mind the details of that morning walk are even more distinct than when I trod it. The pause of consideration as to the turning to be taken; the selection, as it happened, of just the right gate; the belt of pines half-way up the hill, that from below seemed so near the highest point, but attained, showed a great height still to be surmounted—much like all striving upwards here after any excellence, especially after holiness; the pleasure when at last the summit was attained; the little incidents connected with that attainment; the frail harebell plucked, and pressed even now in my pocket-book; the curious war that I found and left going on between a hawk and a rook; each striving to get above the other, each making and each avoiding the hostile swoop; all these slight matters are the details which make that day’s whole still a distinct sharp picture to my mind.

And very full of matter for musing appears to me now that morning expedition. I forget how many counties of England and Wales lay outspread before me; some six or seven, I think. Certainly a mist brooded over them, and I did not see them clearly; but yet there they were, and I know not but that the half-appearance may have more impressed (imagination being called in to complete the scene) than a clear panorama would have done. The world’s ordinary sights and sounds lay far beneath me; the narrow scope of the ordinary206 view was widened; for fields, I surveyed counties in my landscape, and for hedges, lines of distant hills. All things were wider and larger, and I breathed a more expansive, freer air; and I seemed, I think, a little raised above life’s pettinesses, by the quiet and the breadth of view of that early morning ascent.
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Ah, friends,—and brothers in both the meannesses and the great expectations of this strange finite, infinite existence,—how we need, how we need, these periodical ascents into207 Higher ground! How large life is; and yet, how little! How we fret and fume about fields and hedges—merest trifles, when counties and hills—nay, continents and seas—nay, worlds or systems, and space, might lie under the ken of our perception and contemplation, which, indeed, has no bounds, forward, through eternal time, and infinite space! How, in the littleness of things, are we apt to swamp the largeness which they might present to our thought! How life’s pettinesses overmaster the mighty tremendous prospect that God has set before us, looming indeed through a veil of mist, far below our feet! Oh, how grand, how stupendous, how magnificent, might this our life, rightly thought of, become! Money, love, fame, power; it is, while we stand on the mountain, the tinkle of a sheep-bell far below us in the valley; it is the pigmy form, it is the muffled cry of those things which seemed to us large and of full growth, when we met them down far below in the bustle and busy intercourse of life. I think of Martha, with the ordering of a meal the great matter in her eyes; Mary, indeed at the Saviour’s feet, but thus seated, placed, in good truth, upon a mountain, from whose wide range of view all merely of this world seemed petty, worthless, mean. Oh, for a mountain view of life! Oh, for an angel’s view! Then money, power, talents, influence, all would be noble, as offerings to Christ; contemptible in any other aspect. How I crave to take always that standing-point; to survey life—so far as such as I am can—from God’s point of sight; to look at time as, after all, only a tooth in the great cog-wheel of Eternity, as something very small, that fits into something very large! The littleness of208 life; its scandals, its jealousies, its irritations, its safe voyages or its wrecks, its gains or losses of a fast-flying hour; its loves and hopes, its hates and despairs, its ecstasies and anguishes; these are the fields and hedges that are perceived no longer, when we have ascended above this brief and transient state of things, and look down upon counties, continents, worlds.

How I mourn over life’s pettinesses! How I grieve, in my better mountain hours, to find myself always easily moved and disturbed, either to enjoyment or vexation, by the merest and most absolute trifles! How bitter it is to me, next time I get the wider view, to perceive how easily, and naturally, and contemptibly, I descended, after the last ascent, down among the thronging, chafing, soul-lowering interests and phantasies of this lower world, this span-long life again! Ah, spark of the Infinite, that finite things can so absorb thee! Ah, heir of Eternity, that time’s dancing motes can affect thee so much! Ah, member of Christ, child of God and inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven, that it can much concern thee in what station of life, in what external condition, it may please Him that thou shouldst serve Him, here, and now, in this minute of space and time!
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In life’s morning we may all, I think, be said to stand on the mountain, and, although it be a morning view, made illusive by mist and early sunshine, obtain the widest, least petty, view. More wide, more noble, more expansive—all these the scope of youth’s sight must be conceded to be. There is not the suspicion, the narrow thought, the selfishness, the intent consideration of the present interest; there is a broader,209 more generous way of contemplating life than we shall find later in its course. Doubtless there is the greater proneness to be deceived. The eye is not yet trained to calculate distances; arduous undertakings are misjudged; easy attainments are regarded with admiration and awe; there are many mistakes, much proof of want of experience. But as life goes on, and as men descend to gain this knowledge and correctness of estimation, often the wider view narrows, the freer air is left behind, and the eye that roamed over and took in that nobler scope becomes shut in by sur............