"Great white domes" quote.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 Robert Durran 07 Oct 2022

I have been trying to find a quote referring to the alps as "great white domes". I had an idea it was Geoffrey Winthrop Young, possibly from a poem, but I can't find it. Any ideas?

 Mike Peacock 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

Google brings up a couple of possibles. One is an ascent of Rainier with Muir:
"On beyond is a range of rugged mountains with the north slopes white with snow and not a tree or shrub. And just beyond as it seemed, are the great, white domes of Mt. Hood, Adams and St. Helens, though many miles away."
https://content.lib.washington.edu/warnerweb/essay.html

And twice here in a letter to Louie Muir from Susan Gilroy (I confess to not knowing who she is) about the Alps:
"But most I liked to see so many boys and girls bravely plodding up through the woods over the hot dusty trail and shouting their admiration as the great white domes and peaks appeared here and there as they mounted the long zigzags from point to point."

"How clear and bright the weather is. How brightly falls the sunshine on the great white domes and shattered vascades of ice."
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/978/

 leon 1 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:  Wordsworth ?Descriptive Sketches Taken During A Pedestrian Tour Among The Alps ?

Dilated hang the misty pines on high,
Huge convent domes with pinnacles and towers,
And antique castles seen through gleamy showers.


 

OP Robert Durran 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Mike Peacock and leon 1

I'm afraid it's not one of those. Definitely referred to the Alps. Something about dreaming of or the calling of the great white domes. I think a British writer early 20th century, possibly 19th century. Maybe seen as a quote at the start of a classic book.

 65 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

Ask Mr Perrin on FB, he's bound to know (I think you're friends with him, might be wrong though). I've definitely read the quote, but I've idea where. The only alarm bells that ring is that I'm not well read around historical alpine literature so it might be a bit more contemporary.

 Mike Peacock 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

Is it this? No "great" but it has "white domes". The below is GWY, see page 110.
https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1961_files/AJ%201961%201...

He opens an enchanted gate
for each untrodden ridge;
he cleaves the blue precipitate stair
up the white domes of frozen air,
and moulds the foam-snow bridge;
how small the earth to those wide eyes,
and the near welcome of the skies
how infinitely great!

 Richard J 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

"Old Winthrop Young summed it all up in his Valedictory Address to the Alpine Club, 'These armies of young boys and girls practising their wholesome open-air calisthenics, flooding the valleys in hale and hearty chase of pins-and-needles upon which to thread their athletic limbs up and down ...What was their love to ours? ...the pursuit of the distant white Domes ... etc ... etc ... etc.' "

From Tom Patey's One Man's Mountains. Don't know if he was genuinely quoting Winthrop Young, or being entirely satirical.

OP Robert Durran 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Mike Peacock:

> Is it this? No "great" but it has "white domes". The below is GWY, see page 110.https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1961_files/AJ%201961%201...

> He opens an enchanted gate

> for each untrodden ridge;

> he cleaves the blue precipitate stair

> up the white domes of frozen air,

> and moulds the foam-snow bridge;

> how small the earth to those wide eyes,

> and the near welcome of the skies

> how infinitely great!

Thanks. That could be it. I have just found it also used an introduction to chapter 6 of on High Hills. Though the context I recall was very much a yearning for the high Alps, which is how I was thinking of using it - but I may have superimposed that on it myself!

Post edited at 20:06
OP Robert Durran 07 Oct 2022
In reply to Richard J:

> "Old Winthrop Young summed it all up in his Valedictory Address to the Alpine Club, 'These armies of young boys and girls practising their wholesome open-air calisthenics, flooding the valleys in hale and hearty chase of pins-and-needles upon which to thread their athletic limbs up and down ...What was their love to ours? ...the pursuit of the distant white Domes ... etc ... etc ... etc.' "

Thanks. That is very familiar and could well be what I was remembering.

> From Tom Patey's One Man's Mountains. Don't know if he was genuinely quoting Winthrop Young, or being entirely satirical.

Hard to know........ I  shall try find out.

Edit: Here is GWY's valedictory presidential address to the AC: https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1944_files/AJ54%201944%2...

It's not a direct quote but maybe in the right spirit.

Post edited at 20:23
 Damo 09 Oct 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

> ...Something about dreaming of or the calling of the great white domes. I think a British writer...

Benny Hill, The Benny Hill Show (1973)


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...