THE FLOWER OF GEOGRAPHY 219 



information I have described above that is, what 

 usually goes under the name of Geography. But 

 the point I wish now to urge is that we shall not 

 have plucked the very flower of geographical know- 

 ledge until in addition to all this we have a know- 

 ledge of the Beauty of the Earth. 



Perhaps you will understand me better if I 

 illustrate my point. When a dressmaker has to 

 make a dress for a lady she has to measure her with 

 the minutest accuracy. She must gain a know- 

 ledge, by careful measurement, of the exact shape 

 and size of the lady's body, its true contour, and 

 the length and breadth of the limbs just as an 

 engineer must have accurate knowledge of the 

 Earth's surface. And to the dressmaker as a dress- 

 maker knowledge of the lady's beauty has no value 

 whatever. The lady may have the beauty of form 

 of a Venus, but if the dressmaker has only know- 

 ledge of that beauty and has not exact measure- 

 ments she will never be able to make the dress. 

 But for humanity at large and, as far as that goes, 

 for the dressmaker herself when she is free of her 

 dressmaking knowledge of the lady's beauty is the 

 knowledge that really matters. Whether she is 

 twenty-six inches round the waist or only twenty- 

 five matters comparatively little. 



Now the Earth I regard as a lady as dear 

 Mother-Earth. A real living being live enough, 

 at any rate, to give birth to mankind, to micro- 

 scopic animalculse first and through them to man. 

 And no one can look at the features of Mother- 

 Earth without recognising her Beauty. It is there 

 staring us in the face. So I cannot conceive why 



