believe that in a vague intangible way there was an ideal in front
of and behind this work. It is really not desirable for men who do not
believe that knowledge is of value for its own sake to take up this kind
of life. The question constantly put to us in civilization was and still
is: "What is the use? Is there gold? or Is there coal?" The commercial
spirit of the present day can see no good in pure science: the English
manufacturer is not interested in research which will not give him a
financial return within one year: the city man sees in it only so much
energy wasted on unproductive work: truly they are bound to the wheel of
conventional life.

Now unless a man believes that such a view is wrong he has no business to
be 'down South.' Our magnetic and meteorological work may, I suppose,
have a fairly immediate bearing upon commerce and shipping: otherwise I
cannot imagine any branch of our labours which will do more at present
than swell the central pool of unapplied knowledge. The members of this
expedition believed that it was worth while to discover new land and new
life, to reach the Southern Pole of the earth, to make elaborate
meteorological and magnetic observations and extended geological surveys
with all the other branches of research for which we were equipped. They
were prepared to suffer great hardship; and some of them died for their
beliefs. Without such ideals the spirit which certainly existed in our
small community would have been impossible.

But if the reasons for this happy state of our domestic life were due
largely to the adaptability and keenness of the members of our small
community, I doubt whether the frictions which have caused other
expeditions to be less comfortable than they might have been, would have
been avoided in our case, had it not been for the qualities in some of
our men which set a fashion of hard work without any thought of personal
gain.

With all its troubles it is a good life. We came back from the Barrier,
telling one another we loathed the place and nothing on earth should make
us return. But now the Barrier comes back to us, with its clean, open
life, and the smell of the cooker, and its soft sound sleep. So much of
the trouble of this world is caused by memories, for we only remember
half.

We have forgotten--or nearly forgotten--how the loss of a biscuit crumb
left a sense of injury which lasted for a week; how the greatest friends
were so much on one another's