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 



