With Scott

Excerpt from With Scott: The Silver Lining

The great adventure of Scott's last expedition has been given to the world in the faithful simplicity of the leader's own words, as they were set down from day to day. His diaries were but the basis of the book that should have been written. We have not the half of what he could have told us. But in another sense, that half is greater than the whole. Here stand first impressions, not retouched: the ebb and flow of his hopes and fears, the lights and shadows of the moment, never reviewed in later perspective after the event; thumb nail sketches of character, vividly set down; notes of the day which reveal his spirit entering into the spirit of his men and at the end, the singleness of heart that could give all and accept all for one high purpose. I have often liked to think - surely it is true - that the universal thrill awakened by his example strung up the soul of the nation unawares for the great call so soon to be made upon it.

The other half of the picture has been partly filled in. Others have given the history of outlying explorations with their tale of human resource and endurance; they have recorded scientific results or described special branches of natural history in the Antarctic. Something, however, is still left to be told. No one will forget Captain Scott's almost incredulous delight at the goodwill and harmony of his little company under the trying conditions of Ross Island. It is for Mr. Griffith Taylor to tell of the daily life of that company from within, to tell in careless detail its lighthearted cheerfulness lining solid effort, which the cloud of English earnestness so constantly turns out upon the night.

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