"Experienced mountaineers have a quiet, regular short step - on the level it looks petty, but then this step they keep up on and on as they ascend, whilst the inexperienced townsman hurries along, and soon has to stop, dead beat with the climb... Such an expert mountaineer, when the thick mists come, halts and camps out under some slight cover brought with him, quietly smoking his pipe, and only moving when the mist has cleared away... You want to grow in virtue, to serve God, to love Christ? Well, you will grow in and attain these things if you will make them a slow and sure, and utterly real, a mountain step-plod and ascent, willing to camp for weeks or months in spiritual desolation, darkness, and emptiness at different stages in your march and growth. All demand for constant light, for ever the best - the best to your own feeling, all attempt at eliminating or minimizing the cross and trial is so much folly, and puerile trifling."
~ Baron Friedrich von Hügel (Selected Letters 1896-1924)
