CHAPTER XIX 



NEVER AGAIN 



And now in age 1 bud again, 

 After so many deaths 1 live and write ; 



I once more smell the dew and rain, 

 And relish versing. O my onely light, 

 It cannot be 

 That I am he 

 On whom thy tempests fell all night. 



Herbert. 



I shall inevitably be asked for a word of mature judgment 

 of the expedition of a kind that was impossible when we 

 were all close up to it, and when I was a subaltern of 24, 

 not incapable of judging my elders, but too young to have 

 found out whether my judgment was worth anything. I 

 now see very plainly that though we achieved a first-rate 

 tragedy, which will never be forgotten just because it was 

 a tragedy, tragedy was not our business. In the broad 

 perspective opened up by ten years' distance, I see not 

 one journey to the Pole, but two, in startling contrast one 

 to another. On the one hand, Amundsen going straight 

 there, getting there first, and returning without the loss of 

 a single man, and without having put any greater strain on 

 himself and his men than was all in the day's work of 

 polar exploration. Nothing more business-like could be 

 imagined. On the other hand, our expedition, running ap- 

 palling risks, performing prodigies of superhuman endur- 

 ance, achieving immortal renown, commemorated in august 

 cathedral sermons and by public statues, yet reaching the 

 Pole only to find our terrible journey superfluous, and 

 leaving our best men dead on the ice. To ignore such 



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