The Heart of Nature; or, The Quest for Natural BeautyYounghusband, Francis Edward, Sir
Philosophy
The Heart of Nature; or, The Quest for Natural Beauty
Younghusband, Francis Edward, Sir
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains; Nature (Aesthetics)
What I hope, then, is that this Society should definitely recognise
that learning to see the Beauty in natural features and comparing the
peculiar beauties of the different features with one another is within
the scope of Geography, and will indeed become its chief function. I
should like to see the tradition established and well known and
recognised that we encourage the search for Natural Beauty, and
look upon the discovery of a new region which possesses special
beauty, and the discovery of a new beauty in a region already well
known, as among the most important geographical discoveries to be
made. In this matter I trust our Society will take the lead.
Englishmen are born lovers of Natural Beauty and born travellers.
The search for Natural Beauty ought, therefore, to be a congenial
task for this Society. As I have tried to make clear, we cannot really
know and understand the Earth--which is the aim of Geography
--until we have seen its beauties and compared the varying beauties of
the different features with one another and seen how they affect man
and man affects them. We are constituted as a Society for the
purpose of diffusing geographical knowledge, and I trust that in
future we shall regard knowledge of the Beauty of the Earth as the
most important form of geographical knowledge that we can diffuse.
When I was Writing out the lecture which I was invited to give
before the Society on "The Geographical Results of the Tibet
Mission" I could not resist devoting special attention to the natural
beauty of Tibet. But as I read the manuscript through I feared that
this attention to Beauty would be regarded by our Society as a lapse
from the narrow path of pure Geography, and that I should be
frowned upon in consequence and not regarded as a serious
geographer. I ought, I feared, to have devoted more attention to
survey matters, to the exact trend of the mountains, and the source
and course of the rivers. But looking back now I see that my natural
instinct was a right one--that a knowledge of the beauties of Tibet
was not only one geographical result of the Mission, but the chief
geographical result; and that, in fact, I ought to have paid not less
but more attention, both in Tibet to noting its beauties in all their
multitudinous variety, and in writing my lecture to expressing with
point and precision what I had seen, so that you might share it with
me, and learn what is the most valuable characteristic of Tibet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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