1/6/11

The Kindest Smile

After many frowns fortune has treated us to the kindest smile - for twenty-four hours we have had a calm with brilliant sunshine.  Such weather in such a place comes nearer to satisfying my ideal of perfection than any condition that I have ever experienced.  The warm glow of the sun with the keen invigorating cold of the air forms a combination which is inexpressibly health-giving and satisfying to me, whilst the golden light on this wonderful scene of mountain and ice satisfies every claim of scenic magnificence.  No words of mine can convey the impressiveness of the wonderful panorama displayed to our eyes. (Robert Falcon Scott Journals, Captain Scott's Last Expedition, Oxford World's Classics, 2006).

I am finding that Captain Scott is both humble and long winded.  Upon reading this passage (entered into his Journal on 1/4/1911), I felt I was watching the scene unfold along with him.  What a scene it must have been!