Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/194

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Canadian Alpine Journal

pound word 'mountain-sickness' is not formed on the same plan as that very nice word 'home-sickness.' (Laughter).

With regard to art: "Is it possible that Alpine Club men can climb as they do without breaking out into art, if they can use their fingers at all? Why, our club rooms are at this moment crowded and overcrowded with examples of the art of members. Nothing but the work of a member has been admitted there at all."

Finally: "What about Alpine work as an old man's memory? Well, just this: It is clean and wholesome, pure and unselfish, from one end to the other; there is nothing like it. Just think of the recollections of companionship. You have a jovial, genial companion for a week; you give him chaff and he probably gives you more in return; and so you go on as if the whole thing was just a happy lark. Suddenly there comes a crisis. In a moment your companion is like a steel spring, instinct with keenness of mind. He knows exactly the right thing to do, and exactly the right way to do it. Many and many a time that steel spring, instinct with keennes of mind, has saved a valuable life. And at the end when the time comes to shake hands and say 'Auf wiedersehen,' not one word, not one glance, throughout the whole of the week that either has reason to regret. (Applause). That is the sort of thing we old men have, recollections of things like that. You younger men, not perhaps of the club, get this, that and the other in your course through life, but with all your getting get clean memories for your older age. (Applause).

"We have heard a good deal of late of Honours Classes. I am not going to put the Alpine Club in the first class of clubs, or of sports. There is one word that has only once been used in all the centuries of honours of the University of Cambridge. Far above all