Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-03-09
A Night Fixed.

When she saw that I was strug-
Cling hard she reminded my husband
Of his intention of asking Martin to
dinner, and thereupon q night was
fixed and a party invited.
Martin came, and | was only too
happy to meet him in company,
though the pain and humiliation of
the contrast between him and my
husband and his friends, and the diff
ference Of the atmosphere In which
he lived from that to which l thought
was doomed forever was almost
more than | could bear.
| think they must have felt it
themselves, for though their usual
conversation was of horses and dogs
were silent while Martin in his
rugged, racy, poetic way (for all ex-
plorers are poets) talked of the
beauty of the great Polar night, the
cloudless Polar day, the midnight
calm and the moonlight on the
glaciers, which was the loveliest,
weirdest, most desolate, yet most en-
trancing light the world could show.
81 wonder you don't think of going
back to the Antarctic, If it's so fas-
cinating," said Alma.
II do. Bet your life I do" said
Martin, and then he told them what
he had told me on the launch, but
more fully and even more raptur-
ously-the story of his great scheme
for saving life and otherwise bene-
fitting humanity.
For hundreds of years man, prompt
ed merely by the love of adventure,
the praise of achievement. and the
desire to know the globe he lived on,
had been shouldering his way to the
hitherto inviolable regions of the
Poles; but now the time had come to
turn his knowledge to- account.
How" said my husband
by putting himself into such a po-
sition," said Martin, that he will be
ahead the weather of a vast part of
the navigable and habitable world
by establishing installations of wire
less telegraphy as near as possible to
the long ice barrier about the Pole
from which ice foes and icebergs
and billiards. come, so that we can
say in ten minutes from the side of
Mount Erebus to half the Southern
Hemisphere, Look out. It's coming
down., and thus save, millions Of lives
from shipwreck, and hundreds Of mil
lions of money"
Splendid, by Jove," said Mr.. East
cliff.
Yes, ripping, by jingo!" said Mr..
Vivian
"A ridiculous DREAM muttered my
husband, but not until Martin had
gone, and then Alma, seeing that 1
was all aglow, said
What a lovely mani wonder
you don't see more of him, Mtsy my
love He'll be going to the end of the
earth soon, and then you'll be sorry
you missed the chance"
Her words hurt me like the sting
of a wasp, but ! could not resist them,
and when some days later Martin
called to take me to the Geographi-
cal Society, where his commander,
Lieutenant -, was to give an
account of their expedition, could
not find it in my heart to refuse to
go.
Oh, the difference of this world
from that in which ! had been living
for the past six months All that was
best in England seemed to be there,
the men who were doing the work of
the world and the women who were
their wives and partners
The theater was like the inside of
a dish, and I sat by Martins side on
the bottom row of seats, just in front
of the platform and face to face with
the commander.
His lecture, which was illustrated
by many Photographic lantern slides
of the exploring party Gncluding the
one that had been shown to me on the
ship was very interesting, but terri
bly, pathetic; and when he described
the hardships they had gone through
in a prolonged blizzard on high
plateau. with food and fuel running
low, and no certainty that they would
ever see home again, I found myself
feeling for Martins hand to make
sure that he was there.
Toward the end the commander
spoke very modestly of himself say
ing he could never have reached the
S7th parallel if he had not had a crew
of the finest comrades that ever sailed
on a ship.
And though they're all splendid
fellows" he said. there's one I can
specially mention without doing