“There is courage and strength and loyalty and love shining out of the second volume no less than out of the first; there were gallant gentlemen who lived as well as gallant gentlemen who died; but it is the story of Scott, told by himself, which will give the book a place among the great books of the world.  That story begins in November 1910, and ends on March 29, 1912, and it is because when you come to the end, you will have lived with Scott for sixteen months, that you will not be able to read the last pages without tears.  That message to the public was heartrending enough when it first came to us, but it was as the story of how a great hero fell that we read it; now it is just the tale of how a dear friend died.  To have read this book is to have known Scott; and if I were asked to describe him, I think I should use some such words as those which, six months before he died, he used of the gallant gentleman who went with him, ‘Bill’ Wilson.  ‘Words must always fail when I talk of him,’ he wrote; ’I believe he is the finest character I ever met—­the closer one gets to him the more there is to admire.  Every quality is so solid and dependable.  Whatever the matter, one knows Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal, and quite unselfish.’  That is true of Wilson, if Scott says so, for he knew men; but most of it is also true of Scott himself.  I have never met a more beautiful character than that which is revealed unconsciously in these journals.  His humanity, his courage, his faith, his steadfastness, above all, his simplicity, mark him as a man among men.  It is because of his simplicity that his last message, the last entries in his diary, his last letters, are of such undying beauty.  The letter of consolation (and almost of apology) which, on the verge of death, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson, wife of the man dying at his side, may well be Scott’s monument.  He could have no finer.  And he has raised a monument for those other gallant gentlemen who died—­Wilson, Oates, Bowers, Evans.  They are all drawn for us clearly by him in these pages; they stand out unmistakably.  They, too, come to be friends of ours, their death is as noble and as heartbreaking.  And there were gallant gentlemen, I said, who lived—­you may read amazing stories of them.  Indeed, it is a wonderful tale of manliness that these two volumes tell us.  I put them down now; but I have been for a few days in the company of the brave ... and every hour with them has made me more proud for those that died and more humble for myself.”

I have quoted this review at length, because it gives the atmosphere of hero-worship into which we were plunged on our return.  That atmosphere was very agreeable; but it was a refracting medium through which the expedition could not be seen with scientific accuracy—­and the expedition was nothing if not scientific.  Whilst we knew what we had suffered and risked better than any one else, we also knew that science takes no account of such things; that a man is no better for having made the worst journey in the world; and that whether he returns alive or drops by the way will be all the same a hundred years hence if his records and specimens come safely to hand.