5 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 37

ON HIGH HILLS: MEMORIES OF THE ALPS. By offrey Winthrop.

Young. Illustrated. (Methuen. 18s.)— our philosopher condemns mountaineering as aimless toil, ad its votaries as persons of suicidal tendencies. Perhaps one can say exactly wherein its pleasure consists ; it hallenges and defies analysis. But among the hills lies a sistless magnet, and one which draws to it the very salt f the earth. The late A. D. Godley, has written- that the ge of Alpine walks, for Englishmen, may be drawing to its lose " ' - but, if it is, how very necessary are books like this I Mr. Young's that sing their delights. Of his own many pine climbs he' writes with knowledge and enthusiasm and with restraint. "A great sport," he calls it, "if perhaps

e greatest. It is a high enough claim." It is, indeed ; nd he might have added that mountains seem to corn- milli:ate to those who love them something of their own really and steadfastness. Those who have higher ideals than /a grande ascension de /a table d'hole may well read this book and be fired, as its writer is, with "the desire for the high air, and the sun shining on the peaks and the sense of something accomplished."