Let us take up this sad case
verse by verse:
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There we get an accurate pen picture of his young man's deplorable
state. He is climbing a mountain in the dead of winter. It is
made plain later on that he is a stranger in the neighborhood,
consequently it is fair to assume that the mountain in question is
one he has never climbed before. Nobody hired him to climb any
mountain; he isn't climbing it on a bet or because somebody dared
him to climb one. He is not dressed for mountain climbing.
Apparently he is wearing the costume in which he escaped from the
institution where he had been an inmate--a costume consisting
simply of low stockings, sandals and a kind of flowing woolen
nightshirt, cut short to begin with and badly shrunken in the wash.
He has on no rubber boots, no sweater, not even a pair of ear
muffs. He also is bare-headed. Well, any time the wearing of
hats went out of fashion he could have had no use for his head,
anyhow.
I grant you that in the poem Mr. Longfellow does not go into
details regarding the patient's garb. I am going by the
illustration in the reader.
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