AN AqDRESS TO THE UNION SOCIETY 

 OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 

 LONDON, DELIVERED ON MARCH 17, 

 1921. 



You have been good enough to leave to me the 

 choice of subject on which to address you this even- 

 ing, and I have chosen the subject " Natural Beauty 

 and Geography " because I have the honour to hold 

 at present the position of President of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, and am therefore supposed 

 to know something about Geography, and because 

 a love of Natural Beauty is one of the great passions 

 of my life. * 



I belieVe the two are inseparably connected with 

 one another, and, briefly, the view I want to put 

 before you is this — that a description of the Natural 

 Beauty of the Earth should be included in 

 Geography. By Geography we mean a descrip- 

 tion of the Earth. And we cannot adequately 

 describe the Earth until we have observed it in all 

 its aspects and really know and understand it. And 

 we cannot really understand the Earth until we have 

 entered into her spirit and feel ourselves in harmony 

 with it. But when our spirit is in harmony with 

 the spirit of the Earth we, in that instant, see the 

 Beauty of the Earth. When we are seeing Beauty 

 in the Earth we are understanding the Earth. In 



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