I recently picked up a book written by the late Colonel Townsend Whelen, and at the end of his intro he added a quote from a book written by some fellow named Sir Alfred Pease. I thought it was a well written piece worth sharing.
" Others may learn much, see much, enjoy much, but the most and best is known to the man who quits his bed before sunrise, who spends his nights as well as days by the month and year on mountain ranges, in forests, and in the wilderness; who bears heat and cold and hunger, thirst and toil, for the love of Nature; and is pushed by his passion down into the abysmal depths of Himalayan gorges, African kloofs, or American canons, or led up to snowy peaks, to realms of eternal ice, or over the sun-withered wastes of the earth, to visit the utmost refuges of beast and bird. The artist is his only rival in his courtship, the only competitor of the bliss of a sportsman's paradise. The best artists have something of the sportsman's instinctive longing to see, to touch, to handle, and the best sportsmen have something of the artistic temperament. Yet, when I think of it, where is the artist in literature or painting who, like innumerable sportsmen, despising wealth and fame, have wandered off alone to spend all their years in Nature's wilds, finding there alone what can satisfy their love of her delights. "
" Others may learn much, see much, enjoy much, but the most and best is known to the man who quits his bed before sunrise, who spends his nights as well as days by the month and year on mountain ranges, in forests, and in the wilderness; who bears heat and cold and hunger, thirst and toil, for the love of Nature; and is pushed by his passion down into the abysmal depths of Himalayan gorges, African kloofs, or American canons, or led up to snowy peaks, to realms of eternal ice, or over the sun-withered wastes of the earth, to visit the utmost refuges of beast and bird. The artist is his only rival in his courtship, the only competitor of the bliss of a sportsman's paradise. The best artists have something of the sportsman's instinctive longing to see, to touch, to handle, and the best sportsmen have something of the artistic temperament. Yet, when I think of it, where is the artist in literature or painting who, like innumerable sportsmen, despising wealth and fame, have wandered off alone to spend all their years in Nature's wilds, finding there alone what can satisfy their love of her delights. "
