Like the Romantic poets (like Byron's Childe Harold, which he would quote in reams, word-perfect, as he climbed), he believed that mountains were sublime.
Based on accounts from his close friends, it appears that he had some issues with reading, although never explicitly stated he may have suffered from dyslexia.
And the straightforward writing system (almost any word can be read aloud accurately by anyone who knows the rules) is the result of unusually early and sustained efforts to impose a logic on the language.