Roosevelt which concluded as follows: "I have always peculiarly prized my honorary membership in the Club, for not only has the Club itself done a great work, but it has set the standard for all similar organizations in all other countries, and its example has counted much in many fields other than those of strict mountaineering."
Continuing the Bishop said: "Now, my lords and gentlemen, I should like to take as the text for a sermon as short as I can make it Theodore Roosevelt's remark that this club has set an example in many fields other than those of strict mountaineering. I should like to read to you—many of you may have forgotten this—an extract from the form of application for membership in the club: 'The applicant must send a list of his mountaineering expeditions or a statement of the amount of contribution to Alpine literature, science, or art, upon which he founds the claim for membership'—not strict mountaineering, you see, but a good deal that is outside that."
Again speaking of the contributions of Alpine men to the letters of the day: "With regard to literature, is it surprising that Alpine literature should be of a very striking kind? I think it is not. Beginning with Sir Alfred Wills, and even some before him, and going on to the list of other delightful writers—we can never forget 'Peaks, Passes and Glaciers'—they have been men of observation in many scenes of quite unrivalled beauty; not only of unrivalled beauty, but of mystery—a solitariness—a mystery that always makes an impression upon the sensitive mind. But more than that, anything that the skilled Alpine climber does must be virile and strenuous. Therefore you have thoughtful, imaginative, strenuous, virile literature as the natural literature which comes from the Alpine Club. (Hear, hear). It has been—I was going to say my duty—my pleasure to look once more at some of the literature which Alpine Club men have put forth to the world, apart from
