AUCTOR. Wait a moment. I say, away with such foolery. Note that
pedants lose all proportion. They never can keep sane in a discussion.
They will go wild on matters they are wholly unable to judge, such as
Armenian Religion or the Politics of Paris or what not. Never do they
use one of those three phrases which keep a man steady and balance his
mind, I mean the words (1) _After all it is not my business. (2) Tut!
tut! You don't say so! and (3) _Credo in Unum Deum Patrem
Omnipotentem, Factorem omnium visibilium atque invisibilium;_ in which
last there is a power of synthesis that can jam all their analytical
dust-heap into such a fine, tight, and compact body as would make them
stare to see. I understand that they need six months' holiday a year.
Had I my way they should take twelve, and an extra day on leap years.
LECTOR. Pray, pray return to the woman at the inn.
AUCTOR. I will, and by this road: to say that on the day of Judgement,
when St Michael weighs souls in his scales, and the wicked are led off
by the Devil with a great rope, as you may see them over the main
porch of Notre Dame (I will heave a stone after them myself I hope),
all the souls of the pedants together will not weigh as heavy and
sound as the one soul of this good woman at the inn.
She put food before me and wine. The wine was good, but in the food
was some fearful herb or other I had never tasted before - a pure spice
or scent, and a nasty one. One could taste nothing else, and it was
revolting; but I ate it for her sake.
Then, very much refreshed, I rose, seized my great staff, shook myself
and said, 'Now it is about noon, and I am off for the frontier.'
At this she made a most fearful clamour, saying that it was madness,
and imploring me not to think of it, and running out fetched from the
stable a tall, sad, pale-eyed man who saluted me profoundly and told
me that he knew more of the mountains than any one for miles. And this
by asking many afterwards I found out to be true. He said that he had
crossed the Nufenen and the Gries whenever they could be crossed since
he was a child, and that if I attempted it that day I should sleep
that night in Paradise. The clouds on the mountain, the soft snow
recently fallen, the rain that now occupied the valleys, the glacier
on the Gries, and the pathless snow in the mist on the Nufenen would
make it sheer suicide for him, an experienced guide, and for me a
worse madness. Also he spoke of my boots and wondered at my poor coat
and trousers, and threatened me with intolerable cold.
