Where are the eagles and the trumpets? Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. Over buttered scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping multitudes Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  'Cooking Egg'.

  Butforme, theAlps and their peoplewerealikebeautiful in their snow, and their humanity; and I wanted, neither for them nor myself, sight of any thrones in heaven but the rocks, or of any spirits in heaven but the clouds.

-Ruskin,John
^3  The Stones ofVenice, vol.i, ch.2.

We were eight daysincoming hither from Lyons; thefour last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inhabitants!

-Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford
  Letter to RichardWest. Collected in P Cunningham (ed) The Letters of HoraceWalpole, Fourth Earl of Orford (1857^9).