Arthur Conan Doyle

“ When the earth has all been explored, when the last savage has been tamed, when the final cannon has been scrapped, and the world has settled down into unbroken virtue and unutterable dulness, men will cast their thoughts back to our age, and will idealize our romance and—our courage, even as we do that of our distant forbears. "It is wonderful what these people did with their rude implements and their limited appliances!" That is what they will say when they read of our explorations, our voyages, and our wars.
Now, take that first book on my travel shelf. ”

“ The tradition of Arctic exploration is a noble one among Americans as well as ourselves. The next book is a case in point. It is Greely's "Arctic Service," and it is a worthy shelf-companion to Scott's "Account of the Voyage of the Discovery." There are incidents in this book which one can never forget. The episode of those twenty-odd men lying upon that horrible bluff, and dying one a day from cold and hunger and scurvy, is one which dwarfs all our puny tragedies of romance. ”

“ Another book which shows the romance and the heroism which still linger upon earth is that large copy of the "Voyage of the Discovery in the Antarctic" by Captain Scott. Written in plain sailor fashion with no attempt at over-statement or colour, it none the less (or perhaps all the more) leaves a deep impression upon the mind. As one reads it, and reflects on what one reads, one seems to get a clear view of just those qualities which make the best kind of Briton. Every nation produces brave men. Every nation has men of energy. ”

“ Drawn by some strange force, from the unfathomable depths below, eerie shapes sought the surface, blinking glassily at the unfamiliar glare they had exchanged for their native gloom—uncouth creatures bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them, fathom-long, medusae with coloured spots like eyes clustering all over their transparent substance, wriggling worm-like forms of such elusive matter that the smallest exposure to the sun melted them, and they were not. ”

“ No flinching, no grumbling, every discomfort taken as a jest, no thought of self, each working only for the success of the enterprise. When you have read of such privations so endured and so chronicled, it makes one ashamed to show emotion over the small annoyances of daily life. ”

“ Personally I must confess that anything bearing upon the Arctic Seas is always of the deepest interest to me. He who has once been within the borders of that mysterious region, which can be both the most lovely and the most repellent upon earth, must always retain something of its glamour. ”

“ What chance, for example, has any book by an unknown author which is published at a moment of great national excitement, when some public crisis arrests the popular mind? Hundreds have been still-born in this fashion, and are there none which should have lived among them? Now, there is a book, a modern one, and written by a youth under thirty. ”

“ One's consideration for others as well as one's own self-respect should check the grumble. This self-suppression, and also the concealment of pain are two of the old noblesse oblige characteristics which are now little more than a tradition. ”

“ Still more must the salt drop tingle in the blood of an American when you reflect that in all that broad continent there is not one whose forefather did not cross 3000 miles of ocean. And yet there are in the Central States millions and millions of their descendants who have never seen the sea. ”

“ Standing on the confines of known geography I have shot the southward flying ducks, and have taken from their gizzards pebbles which they have swallowed in some land whose shores no human foot has trod. ”

“ That is one of the weaknesses of modern life. We complain too much. We are not ashamed of complaining. Time was when it was otherwise—when it was thought effeminate to complain. The Gentleman should always be the Stoic, with his soul too great to be affected by the small troubles of life. ”

“ Public opinion should be firmer on the matter. The man who must hop because his shin is hacked, or wring his hand because his knuckles are bruised should be made to feel that he is an object not of pity, but of contempt. ”

“ You may remember, if you have read the book, that even when there were only about eight unfortunates still left, hardly able to move for weakness and hunger, the seven took the odd man out upon the ice, and shot him dead for breach of discipline. ”

“ A footnote somewhere explains that the Papuans who lived in the Bird-of-Paradise country were confirmed cannibals. Fancy living for years with or near such neighbours! Let a young fellow read these two books, and he cannot fail to have both his mind and his spirit strengthened by the reading. ”