It
wanted an understanding man to appreciate Scott quickly; to others
knowledge came with experience.
He was not a _very_ strong man physically, and was in his youth a weakly
child, at one time not expected to live. But he was well proportioned,
with broad shoulders and a good chest, a stronger man than Wilson, weaker
than Bowers or Seaman Evans. He suffered from indigestion, and told me at
the top of the Beardmore that he never expected to go on during the first
stage of the ascent.
Temperamentally he was a weak man, and might very easily have been an
irritable autocrat. As it was he had moods and depressions which might
last for weeks, and of these there is ample evidence in his diary. The
man with the nerves gets things done, but sometimes he has a terrible
time in doing them. He cried more easily than any man I have ever known.
What pulled Scott through was character, sheer good grain, which ran over
and under and through his weaker self and clamped it together. It would
be stupid to say he had all the virtues: he had, for instance, little
sense of humour, and he was a bad judge of men. But you have only to read
one page of what he wrote towards the end to see something of his sense
of justice. For him justice was God. Indeed I think you must read all
those pages; and if you have read them once, you will probably read them
again.
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