Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,
          Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,
          Laboringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,
          And four lives paid for what the seven had won. . . .
          They were the first by whom the deed was done,
          And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight
          To that day's tragic feat of manly might

(Thomas Hardy, 1897, about the Matterhorn tragedy of 1865, when four of the seven men first to reach the summit lost their lives on the descent)