JOHN RUSKIN, in a fine and famous passage, describes the effect of a first view of the Alps upon a young and sensitive mind. He was at Schaffhausen with his parents. "We must have spent some time in town-seeing," he writes, "for it was drawing towards sunset when we got up to some sort of garden promenade-west of the town, I believe; and high above the Rhine, so as to command the open country across it to the south and west. At which open country...