“There is a kind of supernatural beauty in these mountainous prospects which charms both the senses and the minds into a forgetfulness of oneself and of everything in the world.”

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genevan philosopher and writer, 1712-1778.

This quote illustrates Rousseau’s passionate account of the experience of being high in the mountains. Rousseau was interested in authenticity, and his pre-romantic prose suggests a deep appreciation for the beauty of the natural world, and in particular high places. The entire passage follows:

It seems as if, being lifted above all human society, we had left every low terrestrial sentiment behind: and that as we approach the aethereal regions, the soul imbibes something of their eternal purity. Imagine to yourself all these united impressions; the amazing variety, grandeur and beauty, of a thousand astonishing sights; the pleasure of seeing only totally new things, strange birds, odd and unknown plants, to observe what is in some sense another nature, and finding yourself in a new world . . . one isolated in the higher spheres of the earth. In short, there is a kind of supernatural beauty in these mountainous prospects which charms both the senses and the minds into a forgetfulness of oneself and of everything in the world.[1]


[1]: Quoted from: Macfarlane, Robert. Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. 208-209. From the original source: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Nouvelle Héloïse. Amsterdam: Marc-Michel Rey, 1761.