Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PART TWO
When you look upon such things there comes surging through the confusion of the
mind an awareness of the dignity of the earth, of the unaccountable importance
of being alive, and the thought comes out of nowhere that unhappiness rises not
so much from lacking as from having too much . . . And you guess the end of the
world will probably look like that, and the last men retreating from the cliffs will
look out upon some such horizon, with all things at last in equilibrium, the winds
quiet, the sea frozen, the sky composed, and the earth in glacial quietude.
Or so you fancy. Then along comes a walloping Antarctic blizzard and knocks
such night dreaming into a cocked hat.
Richard E. Byrd, from
Discovery
