The Ascent Was By No Means
Difficult Or Unpleasant, And Occupied Much Less Time Than It
Would Have Taken To Follow The Path.
Even country people, I have
observed, magnify the difficulty of travelling in the forest, and
especially among mountains.
They seem to lack their usual common
sense in this. I have climbed several higher mountains without
guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it
takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the
smoothest highway. It is very rare that you meet with obstacles
in this world which the humblest man has not faculties to
surmount. It is true we may come to a perpendicular precipice,
but we need not jump off nor run our heads against it. A man may
jump down his own cellar stairs or dash his brains out against
his chimney, if he is mad. So far as my experience goes,
travellers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way.
Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary; for what's the
hurry? If a person lost would conclude that after all he is not
lost, he is not beside himself, but standing in his own old shoes
on the very spot where he is, and that for the time being he will
live there; but the places that have known him, _they_ are
lost, - how much anxiety and danger would vanish. I am not alone
if I stand by myself. Who knows where in space this globe is
rolling? Yet we will not give ourselves up for lost, let it go
where it will.
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