Now fortunately all men are not born with the same aptitudes. We do not all want to sing or all want to orate or all want to paint. Some few want to climb mountains. These men love to pit themselves against what most others would consider an insuperable obstacle. They enjoy measuring themselves against it and being forced to exercise all their energies and faculties to overcome it. The Duke of the Abruzzi is as good an example of this type as I know. He was never happy until he had discovered some inaccessible and impracticable mountain and then thrown himself against it and come to grips with it in dead earnest and either conquered it or been thrown back from it utterly and completely exhausted, but with the satisfaction that anyhow he had exercised every nerve and muscle and faculty to the full. His native mountains he had early conquered over and over again, so he had to look further afield to Mount Elias in Alaska and Ruwenzori in East Africa; and having vanquished these he would doubtless have turned his eyes to Mount Everest if for political reasons the way to that mountain had not been barred, and he was compelled therefore to look to the next highest mountain, namely, the peak K2 in the Karakoram Himalaya in the neighbourhood of which he attained to a greater height, 24,600 feet, than has yet been attained by any man on foot.
The Duke no doubt is human and would like his name to go down to posterity as having conquered some conspicuously lofty and difficult peak. But undoubtedly the ruling passion with him would be this love of pitting himself against a great mountain and feeling that he was being forced to exert himself to the full. To such men a tussle with a mountain is a real tonic--something bracing and refreshing. And even if they are laid out flat by the mountain instead of standing triumphant on its summit they have enjoyed the struggle and would go back for another if they ever had the chance.
Others--like Bruce--climb from sheer exuberance of spirits. Blessed with boundless energy they revel in its exercise. It is only on the mountain side, breathing its pure air, buffeting against its storms, testing their nerve, running hair-breadth risks, exercising their intelligence and judgment, feeling their manhood and looking on Nature face to face and with open heart and mind that they are truly happy. For these men days on the mountain are days when they really live. And as the cobwebs in their brains get blown away, as the blood begins to course refreshingly through their veins, as all their faculties become tuned up and their whole being becomes more sensitive, they detect appeals from Nature they had never heard before and see beauties which are revealed only to those who win them. They may not at the moment be aware of the deepest impressions they are receiving. But to those who have struggled with them the mountains reveal beauties they will not disclose to those who make no effort. That is the reward the mountains give to effort. And it is because they have much to give and give it so lavishly to those who will wrestle with them that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again.