Harold Spender, the famous Alpine climber, tells of an unexpected climax to one of his feats. With two companions he had scaled one of the most difficult peaks, and, descending, had found refuge from the storm and night in the cottage of a goatherd. The three men, half frozen, and exhausted with the long and terrible strain, but glowing with triumph, crouched before the fire. The goatherd's wife, a dull old woman, stood looking at them silently for a while. She then pronounced a single word: "Pourquoi?" This is the French word for "WHY?”
Spender and his companions looked at each other with an expression of surprise on each face. They had risked health and strength and life itself. "WHY?" What had they gained? There was no answer. The lone word struck as if upon a blank wall, awakening their consciousness of useless struggle and suffering and danger. The snow fell outside, and the mist shut out the hills. They did not talk to each other. Each was asking himself, "WHY?”
There are other heights in the world besides those on the towering Alps which men try to scale to as little purpose. The man who gives his life to the accumulation of wealth; the woman whose innate desire is beauty and fashion; the college boy who struggles to prove his manliness by aping the dissolute of his class; the religious hypocrite whose piety is all on the surface-all these are climbing barren heights. At the top they can find neither profit nor honor. Their reward will be only the echo: "WHY?”