Coutet was one of those men of natural ability and kindliness whose friendship is worth more than much intercourse with worldly celebrities, and for many years afterwards Ruskin had the advantage of his care--of something more than mere attendance.

At any rate, under such guidance, he could climb where he pleased, free from the feeling that people at home were anxious about him.
He was not unadventurous in his scramblings, but with no ambition to get to the top of everything.

He wanted to observe the aspects of mountain-form; and his careful outlines, slightly coloured, as his manner then was, and never aiming at picturesque treatment, record the structure of the rocks and the state of the snow with more than photographic accuracy.

A photograph often confuses the eye with unnecessary detail; these drawings seized the leading lines, the important features, the interesting points.

For example, in his Matterhorn (a drawing of 1849), as Whymper remarks in "Scrambles among the Alps," there are particulars noted which the mere sketcher neglects, but the climber finds out, on closer intercourse, to be the essential facts of the mountain's anatomy.