So it was, too, with Roald Amundsen —­ not only the first time, when he sailed in the Gjoa with the double object of discovering the Magnetic North Pole and of making the North-West Passage, but this time again, when in 1910 he left the fjord on his great expedition in the Fram, to drift right across the North Polar Sea.  What anxieties that man has gone through, which might have been spared him if there had been more appreciation on the part of those who had it in their power to make things easier!  And Amundsen had then shown what stuff he was made of:  both the great objects of the Gjoa’s expedition were achieved.  He has always reached the goal he has aimed at, this man who sailed his little yacht over the whole Arctic Ocean, round the north of America, on the course that had been sought in vain for four hundred years.  If he staked his life and abilities, would it not have been natural if we had been proud of having such a man to support?

But was it so?

For a long time he struggled to complete his equipment.  Money was still lacking, and little interest was shown in him and his work, outside the few who have always helped so far as was in their power.  He himself gave everything he possessed in the world.  But this time, as last, he nevertheless had to put to sea loaded with anxieties and debts, and, as before, he sailed out quietly on a summer night.

Autumn was drawing on.  One day there came a letter from him.  In order to raise the money he could not get at home for his North Polar expedition he was going to the South Pole first.  People stood still —­ did not know what to say.  This was an unheard-of thing, to make for the North Pole by way of the South Pole!  To make such an immense and entirely new addition to his plans without asking leave!  Some thought it grand; more thought it doubtful; but there were many who cried out that it was inadmissible, disloyal —­ nay, there were some who wanted to have him stopped.  But nothing of this reached him.  He had steered his course as he himself had set it, without looking back.

Then by degrees it was forgotten, and everyone went on with his own affairs.  The mists were upon us day after day, week after week —­ the mists that are kind to little men and swallow up all that is great and towers above them.

Suddenly a bright spring day cuts through the bank of fog.  There is a new message.  People stop again and look up.  High above them shines a deed, a man.  A wave of joy runs through the souls of men; their eyes are bright as the flags that wave about them.

Why?  On account of the great geographical discoveries, the important scientific results?  Oh no; that will come later, for the few specialists.  This is something all can understand.  A victory of human mind and human strength over the dominion and powers of Nature; a deed that lifts us above the grey monotony of daily life; a view over shining plains, with lofty mountains against the cold blue sky, and lands covered by ice-sheets of inconceivable extent; a vision of long-vanished glacial times; the triumph of the living over the stiffened realm of death.  There is a ring of steeled, purposeful human will —­ through icy frosts, snowstorms, and death.